


The Devil and Meg Griffin

by Sketchpad



Category: Family Guy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-27 17:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 73,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketchpad/pseuds/Sketchpad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A blast from the past contacts Meg with a simple favor...save her soul!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

"And the winner is...Meg Griffin!"

Despite the occasional jeers and mean-spirited, half-hidden boos that floated up to her from small regions of the student audience during afternoon Assembly, socially hapless Meg Griffin couldn't help by smile as she strode on stage.

Perfunctory applause soon drowned the jeers, however, as she nervously reached out and shook the reedy CEO's thin, soft hand, feeling a sudden rush, and accepting his sealed envelope. The letter inside that would open the social world to her.

"Thank you, Mr. Ragg," Meg gushed. "You won't be sorry. I'll make your magazine proud."

"I have no doubts there, my dear," the executive said. "Now as you know, Pro-teen Magazine stands for excellence, so I'm sure you'll do your level best when you become our honorary advice columnist. Teens around the country will look to _you_ to help them with their problems. Do you think you can you handle it?"

Meg took a confident breath and squared her shoulders, thoughts of her bathing in seas of warm attention made her eyes twinkle. "Yes, sir. I can."

The CEO nodded approvingly, then turned to the audience of partially interested teachers and more than a little indifferent students, and called out, "Let's give another round of applause for Meg Griffin! Pro-teen Magazine's newest star!"

The wave of half-hearted applause rose again as she left the stage in a bouncy march, smiling more to herself than to those children in the audience who, like her and her small cadre of equally looked-down-upon friends, were denigrated on a nearly daily basis by higher-ups on the social food chain.

Beside the CEO, resting on a tall stool and also watching her go, was The Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's Sorting Hat, the deep dents of its eyes scrunching the face-like features of its weathered crown into a reluctant scowl.

"I still say she would have done well in Slytherin," it said grumpily.

"Oh, knock it off. You think everyone you _meet_ does well in Slytherin," Mr. Ragg chided.

Meg walked back to her seat, beaming in the apathetic air of her classmates. What began as the start of a painfully dull period of Assembly, turned into a trip to Disneyland for her, and not even callous Connie D'amico, the school's popularity queen, could dampen her spirits today.

Meg took her seat, with Connie, from her own class, sitting beside her, more discomfort showing on her thin face now that she was seeing Meg happy. Just _happy_!

"You'll probably choke the second your first letter comes in, Meg," Connie said, injecting her usual venom into the conversation. "You're just lucky nobody else wanted in on that stupid little give-away up there."

Meg concentrated on the feeling she felt on stage and the envelope between her fingers. She closed her eyes and could imagine its importance so clearly. It was the missing blueprint to the mad scientist's doomsday machine, the crucial evidence needed to change the course of the trial of the century, the letter that proved her soldier lover was alive and had just escaped from enemy hands. All of these things she envisioned and so much more.

She knew she should have ignored Connie, just be happy with this victory and let the obnoxious blond stew in her own funk until the final bell, but after so many tries and failures at claiming the brass ring of popularity and acceptance, Meg decided easily that gloating was simply part of her long-awaited due.

"Ha! You're just jealous, Connie," explained Meg breezily. "You see, you just don't see things the way that _I_ see things."

"And how's that? Like a dork? A geek? A spaz, maybe?"

Casually slouching in her seat, Meg simply chuckled at her, almost pityingly. "Try a fox."

Connie's face scrunched into an annoyed look of confusion at that. "A fox? Make sense for once, you fashion victim."

Meg felt like a teacher preparing to explain the simple to a simpleton. With a condescending laugh that she herself was often the victim of, she said, "It's very easy to understand, really. Teens all over the country read Mr. Ragg's book. Now that _I'm_ the new honorary advice columnist, they'll all want to hear _my_ opinions, and they'll read whatever I write." She then gave a falsely sympathetic shrug and added, "Whether it's helpful to them or not."

The understanding of what Connie had essentially threw away by _not_ throwing her hat in the ring, dawned on her faster than morning on Mercury. Although her practiced poise allowed her to remain aloof looking _,_ her slightly raised voice betrayed her realization.

"You mean...people are going to listen to _whatever_ you say in the magazine? Just like _that_? But teenagers are-"

"Miserable, impressionable, fad-happy fruit-cakes," Meg finished for her. "But who better to know them than one of their own? Plus, they don't know me yet, so _I'll_ be the new flavor they'll savor, _Mizz_ D'amico."

Truly frustrated, Connie couldn't help but exhale through clenched teeth. In the past, the number of times Meg ever bested her in anything could be counted on one hand, but they still happened, nonetheless, and now it was happening again, in a big way.

"So, Connie," Meg pressed. "How does it feel to witness an overnight sensation, hmm?" Seeing Connie quietly stew was becoming darkly delicious to her.

"Go play in traffic, Griffin. I know you too well. You're not that _conniving_."

Meg gave her a confident stare that Connie didn't, or maybe, _couldn't_ look away from. "Oh, you haven't begun to see the real me yet. But, maybe you should write to me, Connie. Get some of that emotional baggage off your chest. Don't worry though, I hear that all submissions are anonymous, so your secrets will be safe with me."

"If you think I'd write to you about _anything_ , you're crazy, you loser." Connie retorted with an appalled chuckle.

"Maybe, but I do know _this_. _Your_ name won't be in the magazine under the words, _'advice columnist.'_ That's for _damn_ sure. Ha!" Meg crowed, almost catching the attention of a teacher, nearby.

"Whatever," conceded Connie in an envious huff.

Meg could see the auditorium's crowds start to thin. Definitely time to get in the last word.

"Well, I wish I could stay, but letters to write, a cult of personality to foster. Ciao!" sang Meg, as she and the rest of her class got the heads-up from their teacher, rose from their seats, and began filing up the aisle to their next class.

Connie leaned over to a friend in her clique and muttered to her, "Man, did you hear what Meg was saying about what she'd do when she wrote for the magazine?"

"Yeah," the girl agreed. "Who'd have thought the Griffin geek would be so ruthless, huh?"

"Yeah... _I_ wanted to do that."

The limousine swam out of the quiet contrast of the school's parking lot and down the street, like an obsidian shark, after spending its time catching occasional glances by virtue of it being there, and stares due to the dog, cat, and people kill markers painted on the driver's side fender like an ace's fighter plane.

The CEO manipulated his headset and settled in the cozy gloom of the spacious back seat, contemplatively running his satisfied eyes along the black leather interior, the tinted windows and the small chrome accoutrements that shone throughout like stars.

He smiled to himself as his call came through, and a friendly voice welcomed him.

"Hey, there! How's it hangin'? It's great to hear from you again!" the voice said.

"I'm doing great. Just got through finishing my publication's advice column promotional."

"How'd it go?"

The CEO produced a cold smirk. "Well, let's just say that if all the teens who buy my magazine are anything like that geek who won the position, we wouldn't need a new advice columnist, we'd need a suicide councilor! Heh, heh, heh!"

"Ha! Ha! Way to stick it to 'em!"

"Yeah, well, you know what it's like," the CEO said with world-weary sagacity. "It's like the world's making teens dumber and dumber with each new video game and movie they make. No attention span, so they crap-out in school. No education, so they're barely wage-slave material, and no responsible, loving parents to support and guide them, so they end up liberals."

"Well, it's just the way of the world." the voice agreed soberly.

"Yes, yes," the CEO continued with equal sobriety, and then he perked up with a greedy smile! "Hey! Still, Marketing's getting a collective _chubby_ over all of this unresolved angst. We advertise all sorts of fashion tips and expensive, electronic crap that all the cool kids want, and all the geeks think they need. If they bitch and moan and can't get it, they feel like road kill, and then they write to the column. Heh! The magazine winds up selling itself."

He wanted to finish on that note, but then he had to speak aloud in victorious pride, the mantra that gave him the guidance to become the mover and shaker he is today. "Teens. They're not a natural resource, they're a commodity."

"And that's why you're the CEO."

"Damn skippy."

"So what do I owe the honor of this call?" the voice asked.

For the first time in the conversation, the CEO sounded pensive, anxious, but fought to conceal it. "Oh, I just wanted to know if our...uh...package had arrived? I can't wait to plug and play, if you get my meaning."

The executive's heart sank the second he heard, "Err...yeah. About that-" come over the headset.

"Aw, c'mon! Why are you doing this? I've been good and patient, and now it's time for Santa to delivery on his end!"

"It's not that simple," the voice sighed. "Look, for _you_ , I got the deluxe special edition kind. Sure, there are others on the market that could do the same as the ones I'm talking about, but none'll give you the _longevity_ and _quality_ that you need. That you _deserve_!"

The CEO refused to be sidetracked like a rube buying his first car. "I'm telling you! I need them, and I need them soon," he railed as he sat up as far forward on his black leather backseats as he could and rubbed his eyes. "I'm not getting any younger and this has to happen _this week._ Now how about it?"

The voice on the other end chuckled lightly, as if he delighted in hearing the anxiety being played out in his ear.

"Ragg? Ragg, buddy, how can you get them if you drop dead of a heart attack? You'd probably blame that on me, too. Now, just relax will ya?" the voice soothed. "Do you still have... _the thing_?"

"The VHS or the DVD with the Carpenter/Russell commentary?" the CEO asked, looking suddenly perplexed. "Because I still have _Escape from New York_ , if you want to watch that."

_...Snake Pliskin and The Duke of New York square off, unarmed, in an abandoned roller rink in desolate downtown New York._

" _You can't beat me, Snake," says the Duke. "I'm the Duke of New York! A-number one! All o' these bastards would die for me! What've_ you _got?"_

_Unperturbed, Snake glares at his foe and growls, "Not much, pal. But I got this!" He quickly produces a long stemmed rose from behind and hands it to a surprised and very moved Duke._

_As soon as the Duke holds the rose, he magically transform into a cleaned-up Duke, wearing the formal outfit The Beast wore in the dance scene in_ Beauty and the Beast.

_Snake changes a moment later, no longer in his usual clothes, but now dressed like Belle in her ballroom gown, as the two waltz to the strains of "Beauty and the Beast" amidst the now disco-ball lit squalor and the dead bodies draped and festooned about the rink..._

"No! No! You kidding me?" the voice on the other end scolded. "You know! The thing? The _thing_? The _Sumerian_ thing?"

Coming down from his panic attack, the CEO remembered. "Oh. Oh, yeah! No problem. Heh, can't work without the... _thing_ , can it?"

Ragg reached over and pulled a small, wooden case over to him. Feeling that darkly sweet, all-too-familiar rush, he opened it, looking longingly on the item stored within. An ancient amber object the size of his hand, looking like a great, frozen, yellow flame, topped a rounded base of smooth, gray stone, a thin string of equally ancient symbols ringing it.

"Okay," the executive said. "But what's the hold up?

"Eh, you know what it's like," the voice commiserated. "I got these sweet babies on back order, but there are some last minute legal issues to work out before I can get 'em. But don't you worry. That package will be in your hands in plenty of time"

"You sure?"

"Positive. Look, I better get going. I have to see about getting my things in order before going to court. I'll talk to you soon."

"Alright, and thanks a lot. You're a real life saver."

After ending the call, the CEO was starting to feel like himself again, so pronounced was the lifting of the weight of fear from his heart. He began to wonder why he panicked in the first place, while he basked in the negative radiance of the object in his hand.

Still, he needed one more little thing to help take the edge off of the day. He leaned over to the car's intercom.

"Caruthers, let's take a spin over to the residential neighborhoods, if you please," the CEO commanded in a pleasantly wicked manner. "I want to see if anyone's walking their dog today."

* * *

 

Meg's mouth crooked in a weary smirk as she absently watched the familiar houses of her neighborhood of Spooner Street go by.

The day wiped her out, but she felt it to be a pleasant kind of weariness, and she was now passing the time while she walked up the street by mentally going through what she would say to the family when she got home.

Should she be subtle and wait until dinnertime to announce it? Should she just let out in a rush and have the emotion and the moment carry her audience along for the ride? She wasn't sure how to broach it, but she loved the adrenal exhilaration of her time running out as she neared her house, the suspense giving her a charge that seemed nearly sinful.

"Hi, guys!" she called out, as she opened the front door to the familiar knot of family sitting in front of the living room TV.

Lois, her mother, was the first to notice. "How was school today, Meg?" she asked in her calming, yet nasally voice, putting aside her magazine.

"Oh, nothing out of the ordinary, Mom," Meg said in as nonchalantly a tone as her happy, beaming face could convey. A look that was not lost on Lois.

"Okay, young lady," her now curious mother coaxed. "Out with it. What happened?"

Meg steadied herself. "Okay. I did it. I've hit the top. I've reached the peak of Mount Popularity, and I'm setting up a permanent outpost, yeah!"

"What do you mean?" asked Brian, the family dog, overhearing.

"What I mean, dear Brian," Meg said, while affecting a smug, faux-courtly air. "Is that I, _Meg Griffin_ , will be the new advice columnist of Pro-Teen Magazine!"

"Oh, that's terrific, Meg!" Lois cheered. "People will come to you with their problems and you can give them emotional band-aids to placate their wretched existence. Oh, I'm so happy for you, sweetheart."

"Thanks, mom!"

Stewie Griffin, Meg's youngest brother and the baby of the family, heard the exchange above him and gave Brian a quizzical look from his spot on the floor.

"Why on Earth would anyone from this... _Protein_ Magazine want to have anything to do with Meg? My God, they must be desperate to solicit any sort of sexual advice from _her_. And what sort of tasteless name is _Protein_ anyway?"

"No," Brian corrected him in a deadpan manner. "It's spelled P-R-O-dash-T-E-E-N. It's a teen magazine. The kind of protein magazine _you_ want is sold in the all-male section of adult bookstores."

"Huh-huh-huh-huh." Stewie gave a quiet, mirthless laugh once he got the joke and broodingly returned to watching television.

"So when do you start?" Lois asked.

"Well, I have to bring a parent to the principal's office tomorrow to help sign the paperwork, and then it'll be done and superstardom will, at last, be mine," Meg explained.

"Boring!" her father, Peter sighed, signaling his wish for quiet while he vegetated in front of the television.

"Peter!" Lois admonished him. "Didn't you hear? Our little girl's going to be the next Ann Landers."

"Oh, whoop-de-doo, Lois," Peter scoffed loudly, then pointed out, "You might as well tell our daughter that they already got a nosey, Christian, goody-two-shoes neighbor that's envied by one of the main characters."

Lois, thinking that she should be used to his aimless, non-sequitor thought processes by now, took a moment to digest this latest nonsensical rant. Then, strangely enough, it clicked.

"Peter, I said _Ann Landers_ , not Ned-" she sighed in unwelcome aggravation. "You know what? Never mind."

"Exactly," Peter agreed, seemingly to the possible conversation going on in his head as he stared dully ahead to the TV.

Lois turned back to Meg. "Well, anyway, Pumpkin, congratulations. You really deserve it.

"Thanks, Mom. Y'know, it's a good thing nobody else had wanted to do it, or else I don't think he would have called me. Connie D'amico was so jealous. I just loved seeing her squirm in her chair, the skank."

"Wait. Nobody signed up but you?" Brian asked curiously. "Don't you think that was a little too convenient?"

"Well, you see, Brian," Chris, her younger, overweight brother, spoke in pedantic tones he employed whenever he was going to explain something he actually knew well, which was rare, or something he _thought_ he knew well, which was often. "Cooties, like all pathogens, need a carrier, and-"

"I don't have any cooties, you blond walrus!" Meg yelled, then sought to compose her self.

"Anyway, don't be so paranoid, Brian. Anybody could've put their name out there, too, if they wanted," Meg smoothly explained, "It's not my fault the CEO told everybody that the winner would also get extra-curricular credit for doing the column, but just wouldn't get paid. I guess they couldn't wait to get back to their Halo 3's and recording school fights on their phone cams."

"Well, it doesn't matter how you won, Sweetie," Lois soothed. "We're all very proud of you." She turned her attention to the rest of the family. "Aren't we, guys?"

An apathetic grumble of support rose up to meet the two women.

Meg closed the door to her bedroom, and then plopped herself on the bed, stretching out and luxuriating in the knowledge that she never realized how good it felt just to be horizontal for a while.

It was easy to forget the family downstairs. The males couldn't help but be snide, condescending, and a vexation to the spirit. Even Lois could be mean at times. Yet, now, there was just herself, her room, her journal...and her thoughts of Kevin.

Despite her fatigue, she slid herself out of bed and padded to the window on the far side of her room that looked out over the land that spanned between her home and her neighbor's. She didn't expect to see him today, or any day since she sadly discovered from his father that Kevin died serving his country in Iraq.

She would hope sometimes that the reports of his death were wrong, but the odds didn't seem to favor it. Still, she had her fond thoughts of him and the fantasies that, oddly enough, actually reinforced her feelings about him.

With a bittersweet smirk of naughtiness, Meg relaxed and let her mind pull out a pleasant memory from the depths.

_She was lounging in her bedroom debating to herself on whether to go to the mall or just invite her few friends over when she heard a slight noise from outside her window. She went to the window, but had to duck back slightly when she saw a shirtless figure sitting on a stool by the side of the house next door, gripping and lifting dumbbells in a strenuous rhythm. A familiar tingle lanced through her upon see him._

_Although he seemed to slouch a bit forward, as if in thought, Meg could tell from any angle that the chesty, lantern-jawed teenager with the good looks was Kevin, the youthful spitting image of his father, paraplegic police lieutenant, Joe Swanson._

_Meg carefully settled on her pillows by the windowsill, making sure not to make any large movements that could catch the boy's attention. Once comfortable, she continued to ogle in quiet longing._

" _God, he is such a turn-on," she said to herself. "I wish he'd crush me in those arms."_

_Then she remembered the sound of his voice. It was no secret that Lt. Swanson was constantly trying to mold his son into a carbon copy of himself, right down to his voice. When they would talk, she could hear the clear, near-commanding enunciations in his tones, even when in light conversation. It gave her a secret thrill._

_A thrill that opened her mind into a fantasy she was beginning to get lost in, as her eyes became half-lidded, yet her voice became ironically timid._

" _Oh, hello, Mister Swanson," she sang in a quiet, obsequious tone. "I didn't expect the chauffeur to have you home so soon. I haven't finished dusting the furniture."_

_In the cinema of her fantasy, she was a comely maid, whose uniform and occasional bending over left very little to Kevin, the young master of the house's, imagination._

_He lounged on the chaise in his bedroom robe, looking at her with a wolf's eyes, every desirous glance at her limbs and parts in between gave her a terrible shiver of anticipation._

" _What was that, sir?" she asked. "You've locked the chamber door and you-you want me to step out of my uniform...slowly?"_

_Then she hit the pause button on her imagination. She didn't want Kevin to run away if he saw what she was contemplating. And yet, a part of her was desperate to have him glance up and like what he'd see._

_In the end, naughtiness won out. The worry that he might actually look up and see her, turned from a liability to an asset. She would use the excitement of the possibility of detection as a heady spice to compliment the sexy scenario starting up again in her love-addled brain._

" _But, sir," she "protested" in the weakest, meekest voice she could produce. "I must finish my work in here."_

_A slight gasp as an imagined reply was given to her._

" _Oh, the scandal if it should get out, sir! Still, if you...want me, sir, I have no choice but to obey you and...submit to your...hot-blooded desire..." Meg said huskily, as she kept her eye on Kevin, and proceeded to do a little strip tease by the window._

_Starting with her shoes, she kicked them off easy enough. Then she pulled her toque free from her head and shook her rich brown hair into a short, loose mane. She thumbed her pants, slowly rocking her hips side-to-side, and slid out of them, as a snake shedding its delicate skin._

_Meg leaned over to the window again, watching Kevin's body move in smooth exertion, contracting in work and expanding in relaxation, as though he were demonstrating to Meg how he would look if he ever made love to her. In response, she unconsciously wiggled her rear end in a slow, satisfied wave._

"Y'know, if I were desperate enough," said the voice. "I might actually tap that."

Meg jumped so far forward in fright that she nearly crashed through the window. Instead, her head connected to the glass with a rap loud enough for anyone outside her home to hear.

Heart-hammering embarrassment dictated her every move. She took a fast, irritated look up to see her intruder, vowing internally and _eternally_ , that if it was Chris, she'd see him hanging over the side an overpass, a human pinata for the eighteen-wheelers, come rush hour. She didn't expect who she saw.

"Death?"

Standing by the closed door, in his dark, tattered cloak, with his tall scythe in skeletal hand, was The Grim Reaper.

"Hey, Meg," he greeted her in his usually lively deadpan voice. "What's shakin', _besides_ your back forty?"

"Wha-What do you want?" she sputtered in exasperation, wondering how he would know what she was doing in her thoughts. Then she remembered what was his stock and trade, and asked fearfully, "Wait, is someone going to die here?"

The laugh she got from him was as unexpected as it was unsettling. "No, kitten. No one's buying it yet, though your old man almost made this a _business trip_ when you drowned last time."

"Don't remind me," Meg sighed, feeling a little more at ease that it wasn't a family member barging in on her, as she hopped back on her bed. Lying on her side, she asked, "Okay, what do you want?"

His body language and inflection communicated his faux-sincerity far better than his emotionless skull of a face ever could. Regardless, Meg felt a little wary of him and his wayward intentions.

"What? Can't a guy pay a visit to his favorite family of air-breathers? Besides, your family can't hear or see us if I don't want them to."

"Really?"

"Hey, if I'm lyin', you're dyin'," Death assured, not realizing that he _didn't_ cloak Meg, so that anyone within earshot could now hear Meg's one-side conversation.

Brian, watching TV with Peter, pricked up an ear, then absently commented to him, "Meg's talking to herself again."

"Nice kid, huh?" Death said conversationally.

"Who?"

"The guy you were thinking about, pumping iron in the yard," he elaborated. "You were sweet on him, huh?"

"Kevin?" Meg smiled in spite of herself, disregarding Death's telepathic eavesdropping. "Yeah. What about him?"

"Oh, nothing," he said wistfully. "Just remembered that I almost had to pick him up one time when he was younger. Kid looked like he played tag with a Zamboni machine. Whoa! What a mess! I mean-"

"I'm sure you didn't stop from your busy day just to talk to me about my…former crush," Meg said steely.

"Oh, yeah," Death said, seemingly side-tracked. "I forgot. Uh, anyway, did you know some girl named Jennifer? Cute girl? _Wayyy_ too happy?"

Meg frowned in thought as she went down the list of girls over the years that wanted to have anything to do with her, barring her immediate circle of friends. The paucity of persons overall, and her recall of Death saying that the girl was "too happy", finally made the connection click.

"Yeah, I remember now. We met in school. She wore a tracksuit, I think," she mused. "She invited me over her house once, and I met some old man in a white suit before Dad took me home to be with Stewie for his birthday. I guess we lost touch with each other after that. Why?"

"Well," Death went slowly, evident in his hesitation to hurt her with bad news. "She's dead, kid."

A profound numbness settled in the center of Meg's mind. True, she didn't know Jennifer long, compared to Kevin, but she felt, from the very day they met, she found the girl to be a kindly soul. A bright light that shown cheerily against the oppressive gloom of high school social tyranny, for however long. She found herself suddenly missing her.

"How? When did she die?"

"That day you and Peter left to go to Stewie's birthday party," Death explained matter-of-factly.

"But that was years ago!"

"Yeah. Well, those kids with her were members of some kinda youth cult, and she was a member, too. They all offed themselves just as you left the mansion."

"But...I thought Dad said they faked their deaths to get out of going with me to Stewie's party," Meg said.

"Consider the source, kid," Death deadpanned.

She did. Her father was shockingly stupid and rarely said anything that either made sense or was factually accurate. Why would then be any different than now?

"I stand corrected," she said morosely. "Wow. I'm really sorry that she's gone. I wish I had more time to know her, and I didn't even know she was part of a cult until the end, but what does this have to do with me?"

"Well, it seems that Jennifer and her buddies have been cooling their heels in Limbo for a while now."

Just then, Meg couldn't believe the depth and range of their conversation. Flowing naturally from empty chat one minuet, to the supernatural, the next. And she, keeping pace with Death, with nary a stumble. _Typical for this strange family I was born into_ , she mused. Then, a troubling thought crossed Meg's mind.

"Wait. Limbo? If they all killed themselves, wouldn't they've-"

"All earn an E-ticket ride to the furnace room?" Death finished for her. "Yeah, I thought that, too, but somehow they all wound up in the ol' halfway house instead. Guess they were just lucky that Heaven's swamped with paperwork these days, and because theirs was, apparently, missing, they couldn't get processed right away."

"So the afterlife has a bureaucracy?" Meg asked, a little skepticism creeping in.

Death leaned his hooded head back and gave an exasperated little chuckle. "Kid, it's the only universal constant. Anyway, this Jennifer wanted me to tell you that she wants to talk to you tomorrow. I'll have to arrange and chaperone this one, since she's still a convict, if you get my meaning."

Meg suddenly felt her stomach grow tight as she hit a wall in the conversation, as though some nasty bit of personal news evaded her earlier, and now her brain, having snagged it, gave her a sense of dawning horror. The horror of socially suicidal inconvenience.

"What? No, no! I-I have something big happening tomorrow. Something that's going to net me some beaucoup popularity at long last, and now you're telling me to get ready for a _haunting_? You're Death! Can't you just, I don't know, tell God that they're good people, or something?"

"Sorry," Death said. "Not my department. I just take the souls where they need to go. I'm like UPS, except I got a cooler uniform."

"Well, what are we supposed to talk about? Vengeance from beyond the grave, or something?"

"Beats me," Death told her smarmily. "Maybe you two'll compare notes about how many boyfriends you had. Though with _your_ record, she might just beat ya there. Heh! Heh! Heh! Eh, I'm just joking with ya."

Pressured with the knowledge that tomorrow might self-destruct in her face at school with this meeting, and now getting razzed by some Halloween cliché, Meg sat up in bed and gave Death a zinger of her own.

"Yeah? Well, I would say, 'drop dead', but your fashion sense beat you to it," Meg shot back, smirking.

Instead of sounding angry or put off by the insult, Death actually sounded impressed, as he raised his wrist to the dark area where his face was concealed and checked his watch. "Ouch! Good comeback, kid. You've been practicing. Anyway, I gotta go. Just got a call to pick up Uwe Boll's career." He then turned to the bedroom door and opened it, saying to her, "Say hi to the folks for me."

Meg reclined back onto her bed and pulled out her journal from its concealment under her pillow, trying to put her conversation with Death into perspective for immediate inscription.

"See ya," she replied quietly as the door closed behind him.


	2. 2

"What kinda curve do they grade these kids on? A roller coaster?" Death griped as he slipped the report card back into the girl's backpack like a ghost, and then slipped his gaunt, immaterial hand into another one nearby.

Death stood outside the girls' bathroom that was itself flanked between two rows of lockers currently being utilized by the students milling around after the final bell.

He couldn't figure out why Jennifer was taking so long to manifest, but as long as she wasn't trying to escape, which was next to impossible, he could only wait until she was done with Meg.

However, it didn't mean he couldn't do something to kill the boredom, and being snarky was a good way to relieve him of that. With a ghostly hand through the indiscriminate book bag, he would pull out report cards or girls' journals, completely invisible to the victims' simple senses, and peruse them to his cynical heart's desire. Another caught his fancy.

"Man, what's with these kids' grades? Is this a report card, or an eye chart?" he joked. He reached over and snatched another from a no-necked student with seemingly an over-abundance of brawn and, as Death surmised, a severe lack of brain.

"Heh! Well, this one was obviously hungry. It clearly says, 'FEED'!"

And on it went.

The fact that Death decided to stand guard outside the bathroom, made Meg's bathroom experience more uncomfortable than it needed to be, otherwise she wouldn't have stayed in her stall nearly so long. Time, however, dictated her decision to vacate the premises.

Washing her hands in the now-empty bathroom, she wondered why she didn't see Jennifer all day. She risked looking even more socially unacceptable by glancing and occasionally turning at otherwise innocent, ambient sounds, trying too hard to find and force a connection to the ghost of Jennifer, just to get the suspense over with.

"She's turning me into a nervous wreck," she said to herself while rinsing her hands. "Hearing things. Even got my _friends_ looking at me strange. I can't have that! They're the only friends I have that'll hang out with me _without_ a retainer!"

"Gee, Meg. Do you always talk to yourself?"

Meg looked up at the sound, preparing to give another sad excuse as to why she was in the depths of her own soliloquy, when she saw in the mirror in front of her, the still youthful, still blissfully happy face of Jennifer.

"Hi!" Jennifer sang.

Meg turned around in a panic to address the girl directly, but only saw stalls across from her. Not turning further, she glanced right and left, both hoping and fearing to see her ghost in the room. It was still vacant despite the number of children outside it.

"Oh, come on, Meg," said Jennifer by way of placating. "It's just us girls. You can talk to me. Death will make sure nobody walks in on us. We have so much to catch up on."

Meg took a breath and calmly turned to face the mirror again. Walking slowly to it, she said as evenly as her command over her fear allowed her to, "I guess we do. So, what have you been up to? Hell of a way to-"

She mentally kicked herself for the poor choice of phrase and tried again. "I mean, _heck_...heck of a way...I'm sorry. I don't know what to say to a ghost."

"'Hi there', is _always_ a good start," Jennifer offered brightly.

Meg fought her fear and looked into Jennifer's face. She hadn't changed a bit. Same short, red, regimental haircut, same beatific eyes that always seemed to see something beyond whatever happened to be in front of her, same dark blue jogging suit that was the standard dress of her cult. It was as if they had just met all over again. As if that sad moment in both their lives, afterwards, didn't happen.

But it did, and the knowledge of that transmuted her fear into an ache of sympathy that made her want to open up to her again. Chuckling in her foolishness, Meg said with a nervous, lopsided smile, "Hi there."

"Hi, Meg. I really missed you."

"I missed you, too. I didn't know you died that day until Death told me yesterday. What happened?"

Jennifer's face, incredibly, began to sag in her memories of afterwards.

"We all drank a toast to your father. I remember that now, because he truly opened our eyes that day. We all wanted so much to be accepted and loved, that we forgot that our love came from our families, no matter how dysfunctional."

"Yeah," Meg said in wistful admiration of Peter, in one of the truly rare moments when she was proud to call him father. "He's got that effect on people."

"We suddenly saw that we didn't need the cult any more," Jennifer continued, trying to cheer up and sounding sadly perky. "And so we raised our cups of punch to the man and drank. I suddenly felt really weak and passed out, and the next thing I knew, I was in Limbo and was being told by an angel that we were there because our paperwork was missing, somehow, and chances are, we'd have to wait before being judged."

"Yeah. Death told me about that," Meg said. "Huh, you'd think Heaven could keep better records about that sort of thing."

"They said that ever since Jethro Tull won the Grammy for Best Metal Band, the cosmic order's been out of balance ever since. Anyway, suicides aren't looked very favorably where I am, and if it can be proven that we _willfully_ committed suicide, I'm afraid I'll be going to...The Bad Place, Meg."

The fear-lined face of Jennifer was counterbalanced by the worried countenance of Meg. She had no desire to see her friend fated to damnation, but at the same time, she couldn't fathom what on earth could she possibly do to shield her from that.

"Well," Meg started tentatively, uncertain as to how to help, and careful not to jump into anything too quickly. "What do you want me to do?"

If that sense of trepidation was evident in Meg's face and voice, Jennifer hadn't yet noticed. She was too busy lighting up the mirror she spoke through with a hopeful grin.

"We want you to defend us!" she chirped.

Meg's brain felt like a record that skipped a logical groove. "Come again?"

"No, really, it's easy! You just have to come to our trial as our defense attorney and put in a good word for us. William Kuntzler does it all the time," Jennifer explained eagerly without batting an eye.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Jennifer, do you hear yourself? I can't be an attorney. I don't know the first thing about law. You need someone who knows you guys inside and out. I only knew you for a few days, and the cult, I _hardly_ knew, so I can't help you there."

"But-"

"Plus, what if I don't do a good enough job convincing whoever that you guys are innocent?

"But, I believe in you, Meg!

Meg brought her hands up to silence this obviously desperate foolishness. "Stop it, Jen! There's no way I could live with myself if I wound up having a hand in slam dunking you into Hell if I screwed up."

"I don't think you'll screw up, Meg. You've got to have more faith in yourself. We'll be behind you all the way." Jennifer implored, her confident perkiness dissolving to reveal the bare bones of her fear, though she tried to sound otherwise. "If your father could convince us of the error of joining the Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult, then the _daughter_ of Peter Griffin could do no less."

Meg didn't know what was more disturbing, Jennifer's request, or the fact that the girl was actually looking up to her father.

A stray thought about time seized Meg and made her remember. She had places to go and things yet to do, but first, she had to tear those dangerous, rose-colored glasses from her friend's begging eyes. "Yes, I could. Look, _I don't want you to be punished, but I don't how to help you, either_."

Perhaps it was the honesty of Meg's words, or maybe it was the undignified and unconvincing concealment of fear she heard coming from her own lips, but Jennifer finally fell into a shamed silence.

"I'm sorry, Meg," Jennifer said, surrendering. Through the tones in her voice, Meg knew now what a doomed soul sounded like. "I guess I shouldn't have listened to him when he said he knew you."

"He who?"

"Death. I heard him talking about your family one day."

"He did?"

"Yeah. He said that your family were a bunch of trouble-making, air-sucking meat-freaks, and then he said-"

"Never mind," Meg said flatly.

"Anyway, he reminded me of the day you and I met. You were so nice to me. All the other kids teased the other Helpers and me, but you were different, Meg. That's why I asked Death to get in touch with you while there was still time. You _can_ do this."

"No, I _can't_ , and after I'm finished here, I'm going to find Death and introduce him to a sledge hammer."

Meg broke off from her contemplation of smashing smart-alecky bones to look at Jennifer sadly. "I'm so sorry, Jennifer. I wish you _could_ go to Heaven, but Death shouldn't have gotten your hopes up. It's his fault-"

Now it was Jennifer's turn to raise a hand to silence Meg, after wiping an ethereal tear away. "No. No, it's not," she sobbed quietly. "I was...just desperate, I guess. It's just bad breaks, that's all. I was just...scared and being selfish, and I didn't think about your feelings, Meg. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to burden you."

Her last words were trailing like the end of a song as she began to fade from the mirror.

Despite her inability to help her, Meg didn't want Jennifer to leave like that. She didn't want to give up on her, but she couldn't understand why it had to be Meg or no one.

"Wait! Isn't there _anybody_ who can help you on your side?" Meg asked aloud, bringing her hand up to stop Jennifer from leaving, and forgetting that Jennifer was in the mirror. Meg's hand painfully deflected off its surface.

Jennifer went from sight without a sound, leaving Meg to look at her own stricken face, the guilt and helplessness etching lines into the youthful plumpness of her features, making her look, as much as feel, old before her time.

"So, how did it go in there?" asked Death. "Don't worry, no one can hear you if I don't want them to." However, he still failed to notice that he didn't actually shield _her_ from notice.

"You know, you're really sick to do that to her. She didn't need you to get her hopes up like that," Meg hissed at him as she stomped through the near-empty hallway towards the Principal's Office, the few people around, hearing her and silently coming to their own conclusions concerning her sanity.

"What are you talking about?" asked Death, keeping up with her, but keeping enough distance to protect her from accidentally touching, and thus killing, her. "Do what to who?"

She stopped abruptly, too angry and ignorant of his power to care if he ran into her. Luckily, he stopped sooner. "Why did you tell Jennifer that I could defend her and her friends in some _lawsuit_? Do you get off doing things like that? God, you're sick!"

"What are you talking about? The kid asked me to arrange a meet between you two," he huffed in defense. "She said that she had something she wanted to work out and that she was sure you'd agree to it. How was I supposed to know she wanted to play _Law and Order: The Home Game_?"

"So you didn't put her up to that?"

"No. Jeez, and I thought _you_ were supposed to be one the smart ones around here."

His words jarred her into shutting up and thinking, at last. A question begged to her. "Well...Well, then, why would she come up with something like that? What made her think I could _do_ something like that?"

"I don't know. What'd she say?"

"She said that she remembered how nice I was to her."

"Guess she should have expected that, huh?"

Meg didn't like the negativity that slinked coldly through that statement. "What are you talking about?"

Death leaned against the wall nearby and crossed his arms in contemplation. "Oh, nothing, nothing. Just interesting that she thought of you as a last hope and all, and you, y'know, slam the door in her face, that's all. It's nothing," he said as nonchalantly as his disapproval could allow.

Meg wasn't fooled, however. "Wait, you're making _me_ the bad guy here? Look, I don't have time for this crap, especially from someone who admitted that he's just a delivery boy for the afterlife. Do _you_ care where souls go after pick-up, huh? I bet not, and no one comes to you with a guilt trip, because you don't have to answer to them."

"Hey, take it easy. All I'm saying is that it wouldn't hurt to try, that's all."

Meg looked at Death as if he was completely and totally insane, as if he were her father. "Do you hear yourself? _I'm not a lawyer_. I have no _experience_ being a lawyer. I wouldn't know the first thing to do in a court case. I'm touched that she had faith in me, but-"

"You don't have faith in yourself, is that it?"

Meg sighed in frustration. How and why was this hard to understand? "No. It's a fool's errand. What if I don't get it right and she goes to Hell, huh? You think I want _that_ on my conscience? I've got enough to worry about with the advice column coming up. Jeez, I gotta hurry up! Mom's probably waiting for me in the office with the paperwork." Meg then turn on her heel and marched at a quicker pace, Death, just behind her.

A group of kids milled around the periphery of the office in question, but Meg was still a good few yards away from them.

Preparing to slalom a course through them, she said to Death, without stopping, "Look, Death, I have to live, too. I've been kicked in the ass so much in my life, that my last name might as well be _Spaulding_. This magazine job is just what I need to get me the respect that I deserve. That's right, I said, _deserve_."

"First off, it's not a _job_." Death pointed out pointedly. "It's a glorified after-school assignment no self-respecting cool kid would be caught dead doing, and I should know."

"Whatever! Their _loss_! This is mine!" Meg countered sharply, her diplomacy with the grim reaper wearing as thin as his robe. "I have to focus on how to present myself to my readers in the column. I have no intention of looking like a fool in front of people like Connie D'amico."

It was then that Death took a sigh and just stopped walking.

Meg heard the exhalation and the ceasing of clacking footfalls and rhythmic taps from his scythe, and, not knowing why, herself, stopped to turn and face him curiously.

"What's the matter? Why'd you stop?"

Death stood in the center of the hall, a dark, thin, lonely figure, seemingly unmoving and radiating a presence of melancholy that Meg could swear she felt.

"I got no right to brow-beat you, and you're right, kid, I _don't_ answer to no shlub when I come down for a pick-up. If they got a problem, they better take it up with The Head Office, cos' I'm way too busy and business is too damn good these days," Death said soberly.

"And you were right about that Jennifer kid. She should've thought this out better. It ain't your fault that she and the rest of those dopey cult members are in a jam. But, since you're new at this advice column stuff, allow me to impart a little advice to _you_. The next time you're _truly_ ready to help somebody who comes to you, make sure it won't be because of what you think _Connie D'amico_ thinks of you...See ya around, kid."

With a quiet hush of his tattered robe as he turned from her, he faded without fanfare.

Meg stared at the vacant space where a supernatural being once stood, feeling numb and awe-struck all at once. Again, she rebuffed the spirits, and felt an emptiness she couldn't analyze, as they took their leave of her.

Her heart hardened in response to the emotion. They couldn't, or wouldn't understand. It was insanity to ask her to do something she had no confidence she could carry out. Failure, on a massive, personal scale, was the only true outcome. So why did _regret_ begin to thread through her heart, upon reflection?

"Talking to yourself, Meg? Gee, if I'd known you'd crack under the pressure of doing that stupid column...I'd have made you do it sooner, myself!" Connie D'amico said from her small band of friends after they all walked up to Meg from behind.

Meg, guilty, late, and nearly jumping out of her skin from the unexpected voice behind her, told Connie in weary warning, "Connie, I'm not in the mood for you right now. Just leave me alone."

Connie simply leaned conspiratorially to her compatriots, sneering easily. "See what happens when you give a geek some power? It goes right to their beanie-wearing little head."

She then turned back to Meg. "Don't know if anybody told you yet, but that magazine thing is a joke without a punch line. Just like you."

Chuckling to herself, Connie rejoined her friends, and as they began to beeline to the nearest exit, she added, "At least the losers in this school will have someone to whine to as an alternative to _offing_ themselves, like that creepy girl in the track suit and her little cult buddies did last time."

That was Jennifer's epitaph, Meg finally saw. No flowers, no warm words, no love and remembrance of rich days of camaraderie and sisterhood. Just a name in a missed news report, a sad, hollow memory in the life of the students, colored and perpetuated by the shallow, heartless words of the schoolhouse bitch.

And possibly made into a lost, damned soul by Meg Griffin.

Connie's coterie just reached the exit's double doors, when a challenge halted them.

"Take that back, Connie."

Connie turned to Meg, a look of sudden uncertainty sitting on her pristine face like a mask. Stunned, she asked, while walking back to Griffin, "W-What? What did you say to me, you little toad?"

Somewhere in the halls, Toad Girl looked around quizzically. She could have sworn she heard her name being called.

"I said take it back!" Meg repeated, standing her ground. Today, Meg was starting to feel that she could take on this clotheshorse in a fair fight, before suddenly turning it into an _unfair_ one.

"Jennifer didn't know what she was doing," Meg said, riding high on the crest of righteous indignation and adrenaline. "She was just looking for someone to stand by her and be a friend to her."

"So she went out and chose you?" Connie shot back. "Ha, no wonder she killed herself."

Upon that, Meg's center went cold and black, and she lunged at Connie with open hands, fingers questing for soft things to clutch and tear. Then her feet suddenly lost coordination and she stumbled forward.

Connie's crew backed off as one, to avoid a collision, and other students nearby, who saw, stopped their chats and instinctively positioned themselves into a loose circle.

Meg noticed none of that. Apart from quickly regaining her balance and, more slowly, her composure, she noticed something else, something _better_.

At the moment she reached out for Connie, Connie, caught off-guard, screeched and curled into a defense crouch, arms criss-crossing in front of her face. Meg knew why.

She was reacting to the mauling she received from Meg's father one day in school weeks after the town survived a severe flash flooding. In response to Connie's abuse to Meg, Peter, hoping to prove his new appreciation for his daughter, promptly smashed Connie's face through the glass door of a nearby fire extinguisher case a brutal eighteen times before Meg managed to pull him away. Following hard on the heels of that was Meg's equally brutal assault on not just Connie, but also several of her cronies, after her three-month long stint in jail. The memory of the beating, and the subsequent kiss, was still fresh for both girls.

Meg, thankful that her near-tumble was not seen by Connie, and momentarily fascinated by her sudden fear of her, stood with imperious confidence at the wretched sight.

"You've got no respect for anybody. Not the living _or_ the dead. You're just fucking sad, Connie, and you make me sick. I almost feel sorry for you."

Meg then gathered her things again and continued her walk to the Principal's Office, though much more in control now and, she knew, looked on with at least a modicum of respect.

Connie D'amico, shaken by Meg's condemnation of her, waited until she was of safe and sufficient distance before railing in a clearly rattled voice, "Hey...H-Hey! You don't have to feel sorry for _me_! I'm not the one who's going to be putting her foot in her mouth dealing with all of these mouth-breathers around here!"

A good number of the students that stood by during the near-fracas, took umbrage on the 'mouth-breather' jab, and turned angry eyes on her.

"What're _you_ all looking at?" Connie said with weak bravado.

Meg took a relieved breath as she closed her hand around the old doorknob of Principal Sheppard's office. She opened the door and walked in.

The office interior was gone.

Meg stopped dead. Without wondering where she was, she instinctively turned around to leave, and saw no threshold or door behind her, just more of this new interior she was stranded in.

Meg noticed from the high ceilings and spacious entrances, that this place was built to a scale that was larger than the norm, or, at least, to what she was used to, and that felt strangely familiar to her because she felt noticeably small here.

' _Like I feel when I'm at_ _Grandpa and Grandma's place, sometimes,'_ she thought as she was pinning down the feeling. Then it came to her. This place was a mansion.

Not like her wealthy grandparents' home, she could tell now. Not nearly so grandiose and ostentatious, designed to beat visitors over the head with the knowledge that powerful, old money lived here. This place was sparse, functional, and of modern design. Clean, wide and well lit, yet emotionally cold, somehow, and orderly. It felt less like a home and more like a sanctuary...a church.

_...A temple..._

"Oh. My. God," Meg said to herself, the shock of where she was finally slamming her into lucidity. All around her, unnoticed by her presence, and mingling in tiny groups from the entirety of their small throng, were kids. Kids in uniform blue jogging suits.

It was the strongest feeling of deja vu she had ever felt. As though she had stepped into her own memory of the event. Those same children with their carefree, mesmerized stares, the unfamiliarity she felt of their cloistered world, the short-lived innocence of the day.

She stood fearfully still, feeling like a soldier deep in enemy territory. Insecurity and a sense of wonder were battling to see which could motivate her next.

Remembering where she was now, she took a reluctant glance over at the fireplace further to the side of the dining room she was currently in.

There, hanging over the mantelpiece and flanked by two candelabras, in a picture frame so large, it dominated the attention of the room, was the image of an elderly man in a crisp, white robe that matched his snowy hair. Innocuous, it seemed, except for the eyes. Staring, penetrating, hypnotic, they were unnaturally colored with a jaundiced tint that drew one's attention to those eyes directly. As expected.

Meg didn't need any more confirmation. It was impossible, but she knew where she was. Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult Headquarters. The last place on Earth she would ever see Jennifer alive.

A male cult member, wanting to reach a group nearby, promptly walked through Meg, catching her off-guard, her body distorting around and past the cultist's as though she were water.

"Watch it, pal!" she said indignantly. " Nobody get inside me until at least the second date!"

The cultist, and indeed, the whole crowd, hadn't even stirred at her presence. Normally, she would have said that it was the story of her life, but this wasn't normal obviously. Here, Meg was as a ghost, an observer.

Still feeling exposed, she forced herself to move, to quietly patrol her surroundings. She needed to find clues as to why she was brought here, so the lounge and foyer in the next room ahead seemed as good a place to start.

A hint of familiar red caught her eye by one of the temple's bright, ornate windows. Craning her head around the sides of other heads in the way, Meg felt a stab of incredulity upon seeing _herself_ , her ruddy toque caught in the afternoon light, standing and talking next to Jennifer.

It felt like watching a videotape of herself, except it was wholly immersive, if not interactive. Jennifer had spoken vaguely about what she called, "the trip", while she continued to chat with Earlier Meg.

Jennifer then excused herself and headed towards the dining room. Meg remembered that as she saw where Jennifer had gone, noticing the cardboard box she carried to the dining room table. However, because Jennifer's back was to Earlier Meg, she couldn't see what it was she was doing by the punch bowl before she returned to her.

Meg easily followed her and reached the refreshment table just in time to regret it.

From the box marked, "Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult", Jennifer pleasantly fished around before producing an open bottle of cyanide, sprinkling it neatly into the punch, its deadly contents spreading out and mixing quickly. Meg gasped in shock. She couldn't wrap her mind around the truth of it. Jennifer, innocent, misguided pawn of this misbegotten cult, was the facilitator of their mass death.

Meg's stomach moved with a life of its own, and she had to fight to remember that the young cultist was obviously under orders to do what she did, while Jennifer sprinkled arsenic, and then powerful rat poison, into the mix.

Finally, when Meg didn't think she could make the punch any more dangerous to consume, Jennifer finished her witch's brew with a copy of Paul Reiser's book, _Couplehood._ Meg was stunned speechless as the tome sank into the fruity, reactive concoction.

When Jennifer went back to the lounge, Meg watched her go, and then saw, hanging from the ceiling, a large sign proclaiming "time until transformation" with an LED clock counting down the minutes. Whatever "transformation" was, it would be soon, and Meg could bet the punch had everything to do with it.

She went back to the table and reached for the punch bowl. She was determined not to let this happen, if she could help it. As it was, she soon found, she _couldn't_ help it. Every time she would try to grab the rim of the bowl to lift it away and dump it, her hands would pass through the glass container as if she were swiping above it.

Nervously, Meg turned her gaze back to the lounge and, more crucially, to the foyer and the front door. Her father was going to arrive soon to bring her back to Stewie's birthday party, and the talk he would have with her, however uplifting and moving, would become the harbinger of death in this house.

As the mass of worshipers brought the table out to the lounge and gathered with Earlier Meg, Current Meg heard the sound of another door opening as she reentered the lounge. A set of double doors leading from deeper in the mansion, swung out to reveal, to her discomfort, the cult leader.

Meg figured that she couldn't be heard, and so she let loose a stream of hot words at the man who held so many doomed children in his thrall. His lofty, peaceful demeanor as he strolled to meet his happy flock, angered her deeply.

She could do nothing but watch history play itself out, from Jennifer introducing Meg's earlier self to him, to the leader asking Meg if she had, "a mind that sought enlightenment and a heart that sought purity," and when answered in the negative, whether she was, "a confused adolescent desperately seeking acceptance from an undifferentiated ego mass that demands conformity."

Once she answered in the affirmative, and the leader offered her a suit of her own, Current Meg was close enough to hear the man command Jennifer in low tones, "Dispense the refreshments."

"I can't believe I almost joined him," Meg mused worriedly, realization dawning on her of just how easily she almost came to dying alongside the others. Still, as she dreaded, Jennifer complied, going over to the table and pouring poisonous punch into disposable cups. Meg's earlier self was given the first offering.

Meg reflexively swiped at the cup, terrified that her younger self would consume it. Her hand blurred right through Earlier Meg's wrist.

"Oh, that's right," she remembered belatedly. "I'm still here. I _didn't_ drink it."

The reason for her timely save walked into the lounge, as big as life. Concerned Peter waddled over to his daughter, who looked distraught, but was nowhere near as distraught as her older self, watching Jennifer pass out cup after deadly cup to every eager teen in the place.

Then the talk had finally come. Peter realizing what Lois had truly wanted and communicating it to a guilt-stricken Meg. A moment of forgiveness between father and daughter, and for the flock, a moment of loss and long-overdue clarity from the insidious brainwashing that ensnared them so long ago. And then...

"Here's to family," Peter cheered, as he raised a spare cup of punch in the air.

"No!" Meg screamed. It was primal and came from her guts in a surge. She knew he wasn't to blame for any of what was about to happen, but she couldn't stand still, she couldn't _surrender_ to the cruel, inevitable loss to come. She tore off, running to Peter to stop him, scare him, do something, _anything,_ to hold back the next thing that was destined to happen.

The kids raised their glasses in turn, and as one, began to drink. It happened so quickly that if it were anything other than personal, Meg would have remarked that it was merciful.

But it was anything but merciful to _her_. All around her, in front of her, and in her peripheral view, boys' and girls' lives were snuffed out without fanfare, their lifeless bodies assaulting her ears with their flat thuds to the floor.

Yet, even that was not as heartbreaking as watching those eyes, Jennifer's once happy, hopeful eyes, lose their focus, at last, as she collapsed near the table, a grieving friend rushing close to her side.

Meg wished hard that she could touch again, to hold Jennifer protectively in her arms, wished she could be heard again, to tell her that she was so sorry for everything that happened to her, wished Jennifer could live again, to brush Meg's hair like she wanted to. All the things that were so denied them both, she wished could be, but all Meg could do was curl up in a heap beside a lost friend, and wail until she couldn't breathe.

"Why do you care what happens to them?" Meg finally asked in a ragged, tortured voice into the floor when she managed to control her breathing enough. He didn't need to show anymore of this, she knew.

"Because I hate pick-ups like this," Death said quietly while he took a sad glance out of the lounge's windows to the landscaping beyond. "Man, I wish things were better."

Not getting a sufficient enough answer, Meg wearily straightened up on her knees, yet stayed protectively close to Jennifer's body. "I thought you said you were like UPS," she said tearfully.

Death stood off from Meg, not wanting to intrude on her grief. He had seen the ending of human life since Adam, seen it end in simple, and sometime fascinatingly macabre ways. He should have felt inured to it, detached from it and viewed it as a professional would, but he couldn't now. Like he couldn't then. Something jarred deep in him, pricking at his loose conscience like a spur, and it demanded resolution.

Maybe it was the wholesale waste of so much human potential. He sometimes felt that whenever he would visit the battlefield of some misbegotten war. Or perhaps it was just the naked fact that they all died so young. With his command of time travel, he would visit this place time and again to ponder those feelings, and, in the end, come away more laden with those feeling than when he arrived.

"Hey, just because I'm Death, doesn't mean I don't have a heart," he explained, probably more for his benefit than hers. Then, as an aside, he quipped, "I know it's around somewhere, but I _do_ have one."

"It shouldn't have to happen to them," Meg said, unconsciously stroking at Jennifer's hair, her fingers passing through. She didn't care. "What did it all come down to? Bad luck? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Could it have been that _easy_?"

"It's just a raw deal, kid," Death said. "It could have been just that easy, as you said. Everybody looking at what the right hand's doin', and then getting sucker punched by the left. I can't explain it, and I don't pretend to know. All I can say to you Meg is...I'm sorry."

Maybe hearing Death actually apologize brought a little comfort back into Meg's heavy heart. She gave herself a calming breath that came out as a sorrowful, shuddering sigh.

"You brought me here to see this. Why?"

"Because," Death said simply. "You can do this. It never mattered if you _knew_ what you were doing, just whether you'd do it _anyway_."

Meg looked up at Death, red eyes no longer tearful, but giving off a clarity she hadn't known before.

"If I did it...for a _friend_ ,"she realized, at last. "I didn't know her long, but I can't help thinking that she was my best friend. I guess that was easy, too."

Ever since Death first met her and found out she had an appealing bit of a dark side when it came to her insecurities, he knew he had found a caustic kin. Being an island of normality in a sea of familial dysfunction, it was simply an extension of an inner strength she had just dealing with life, a moxie that he could respect.

That was why he brought her here. Why she had to face the demons of her self-doubt. Because, as much as Jennifer believed in her, he secretly did, also.

"Yeah, kid," he agreed. "So, what do you say? You wanna give these guys a fair shake?"

Meg took a long look at her friend, sadness finally giving way to a smoldering determination to see justice done for her, for all of them, by any means necessary.

She stood and wiped her eyes clean, took a cleansing breath, and said, with a light heart and a proud smile, "What do I have to do?"

Death simply looked at her.

Death reached out and touched Meg.

Meg died.


	3. 3

"Jeez!" Meg's ghost fumed testily. "You could've warned me if you were going to do that!"

Despite having his face hidden under his hood, and, quite frankly, having no face to speak of, Death still managed to look insufferably smug. "Would you have let me if I did warn you?"

Meg put her anger on hold to ponder that, and then said with an understanding sulk, "No."

"There ya go, then."

Meg took in the panoramic view of a white, cloudy vista that slowly evaporated in places to reveal what looked to be, strangely enough, an earthly-looking college campus.

"Where are we, anyway?" she asked.

"St. Montage University," Death said, "Home of the Fighting Rockys. You're going to get a crash course in being a lawyer by enrolling here."

This took Meg aback. Surely, he was joking,

"But I thought you said that Jennifer and the others didn't have a whole lot of time. It takes _years_ to be a lawyer."

"You're right. It _would_ take years, but not here in St. Montage.

"Really? How?"

"Jeez, kid. Haven't you ever watched any movie from the 80's? All you have to do is look around for the campus big shot. Let him know what you're studying and let him pick on ya. The rest is easy."

Meg scanned faces and clothes as casually and as carefully as any newbie student could, but she just found herself examining all the typical throngs of university scholars one would encounter.

She sighed in frustration. Whatever was going to happen was only going to happen once she found...

' _The bully',_ she thought, snapping her fingers in understanding. A school was a school, and every school had its social strata. She just had to ask the right people.

The right people in question were congregating near the base of a knoll near the side of the main building. Plainly dressed, bespectacled nebbishes and their equally looked-down-upon, eccentric intellectuals, hung together for mutual protection and bonding as they warily perused the campus for signs of disturbance. Meg felt at home immediately, so she knew she hit pay dirt.

"Hey, you look new here," a black student sporting coke-bottle glasses, said to her as she approached.

"Yeah, just transferred from, uh, Dawson's Creek High School in Beverly Hills 90210," she flustered. "Say, can one of you tell me where I could find the really cool kids? I'm thinking about joining them," she said, giving her best eager smile.

The geek collective looked at her with what could only be described as quizzical shock.

"Right over there, by the fountains, but why shame your family for seven generations by consorting with the enemy?"

"What do you mean?"

"They may not look it, but they all sold their souls to be with the coolest guy in school, Brad Alan Chatsworth. He's captain of the swim team, star quarterback, MVP of the basketball team and chapter president of Rho-Epsilon-Sigma. The guy's got juice."

"Then I think I found my man," Meg said as she squared her shoulders and marched in the direction of the throng that gathered around the tall, blond, decidedly arrogant-yet-good-looking preppie.

Brad Alan glanced from entertaining his sycophants to notice the more diminutive Meg saunter up to him.

He wore his cardigan sweater like a cape and his condescending sneer was like a weapon ready to lash out to meet its mark. Meg ignored his appearance and put all her energy into what she knew was a performance on her part.

"Hi, there!" she greeted, long experience allowing her to play every bit the naïve, new student. "I was wondering if you could help me find the Admissions Building? I'm new here."

"I can tell," Brad Alan chuckled.

"Hmm?"

Brad Alan glanced back to his entourage, a joke at the ready.

"Admissions, huh?" he said in his oily, clipped voice as he looked her up and down with anything but appraisal. "Well, if you wanted to _admit_ that you're ugly, you can just tell us here. Save yourself the trip."

Even though she understood that all of this was just a plot device to allow her to ultimately learn through a timesaving montage, she really felt the sting of that barb.

"What?" she fumed, not caring if she broke character.

Brad Alan sighed. The fact that she was, to his way of thinking, _unreasonably_ upset with his obviously astute aesthetics call, was bad enough, but the fact that she was _still_ standing next to him didn't make sense to him. Well, he figure, never let it be said Brad Alan Chatsworth didn't point people in the right direction.

"Hey, I saw you talking to that bunch of dweebs over there. What are you? A Pauper?"

Meg traced the direction of his dismissive nod back to the group of students she had just left. At the same time, she began musing what he meant by the term _Pauper_. They all seemed well to do enough to afford tuition to a university.

But what about her? Maybe they all had some way of detecting how financially solvent a student was from their clothing, or their posture, or perhaps even their hairstyle. Noticing her own unpretentious ensemble, Meg didn't feel embarrassed, but instead became proud, indignant.

"What? No, I'm not. My family's not the richest in the world, but we get by. Why?"

That admission elicited nothing more than a pitying whisper from Brad Alan to his friends. "Pauper." Sure in his assessment of her, he asked, "So, poor girl, how did you slip in? A scholarship, like them?"

It would be a little while later, after she cooled off a bit, that she would realize that getting upset with the insufferable Mr. Chatsworth was indeed part of the plan. However, now, Meg was in top form. Dealing with similar jack-asses in her life had made her a fighter.

"Yeah, from The School Of Hard Knocks, Prep-Stain. Just because we don't have a gold credit card up our asses, doesn't mean we can't be good lawyers. When we graduate, we'll prove that."

"Yeah?" Brad Alan countered, a little of his bravado stripped when he didn't hear his friends cheer loud enough. "Well, my old man is dean of this school. So you've already lost this fight, _Pauper_!" He quickly turned to his friends. "Hey, guys! I've heard of a Poor Boy Sandwich, but what's a Poor Girl Sandwich?" he joked.

"Well, that's easy," Meg interjected smoothly with a venomous smile. "You in a three-way with two other guys."

Meg walked, almost skipping, proudly away from that and Mr. Brad Alan Chatsworth, who was fuming in lieu of a come-back, the symphony of low commiserating _ohhhs_ from his cronies, and the cheers and whistles from the so-called Paupers nearby.

Meg turned once more to Brad's group and said dismissively, "Oh, and by the way, Brad, you're no Billy Zabka."

As she headed towards the administration buildings, she said to herself with a dark smile, "Well, that's one way to make friends and influence people."

The tableau ended, the students closest to it began to wander back into the crowds. As the tension of the moment started to wind down, Brad, still burning a hole in Meg's back with his eyes, gathered his friends together in a huddle and said with darker anticipation, "Fellas, I think we need to take that girl down a peg."

* * *

 

Meg had never been in a classroom as large and as circular as the one she was now sorting her books in. Chalk dust-refracted sunlight flowed through large open windows, making the chamber even more airy.

Students had already begun chomping at the bit towards the end of the hour, occasionally glancing at the exits, happy to be free of the class, and Meg couldn't believe she was actually getting the grasp of legal concepts and theories as easily as if she were back at James Woods High studying world history.

The instructor, a portly, elderly man with wispy strands of white, surviving hair and clear, intense eyes, was collecting his personal effects, as well. He stood up from his slight stoop to regard her fumbling by her desk.

"Miss Griffin, are you experiencing a case of ants in the pants from where you are sitting?"

"Uh, sorry, Mr. Kingsfield. I-"

"That's _Professor_ Kingsfield, you mouth-breathing little nobody," he coldly corrected.

"Oh, uh, sorry, Professor," Meg said, already chagrined from being the odd girl out so soon in this strange, hyper-accelerated school year. "I was checking to see if I still had my primer on court procedure with me."

"My class will be over soon, to the delight of your fellow students, but not to worry, I will back tomorrow for an encore, if you wish," he said dryly.

"Yes, sir. I mean I really want to learn the ins and outs of being a lawyer. You have no idea how important that would mean to me," Meg gushed forth, now realizing what a boob she was making of herself amidst the light chuckles of her peers.

She was still thinking in terms of real-time, as well as this impossibly edited one. The doubts that she was quite possibly wasting precious time here made her nervous and worried inside. Thoughts that she could fail Jennifer, that she was losing the battle already, made the serpent of fear in her gut twist and twitch. To Kingsfield, he just wanted to make an example out of this strange and possibly bothersome student.

"Why, Miss Griffin? To become filthy rich? To become a… _mover and a shaker_ , as it were? The importance of being someone's counsel can never be stressed enough. It's not to be a launching pad to superstardom. Just because you're here on scholarship, doesn't mean that you can treat this class lightly."

 _How does everyone know my folks don't have that much money?_ she wondered before answering in earnest, "That's the last thing I want to do Mister, er, uh, _Professor_ Kingsfield. That's why I want so badly to be a lawyer. People's lives are at stake."

Kingsfield seemed to take pause at that curious statement.

"Really, young lady? What an interesting outlook on this profession. Which people's lives are at stake that you know of?"

She thought about Jennifer and the other souls waiting for help, but what blurted out of her mouth because of that, caught Meg by surprise. "Anybody who needs help. You know, people I…might not know anything about, and who can't help themselves."

The teacher favored her a quizzical look, trying to read her expressions. He was having a hard time trying to see if this was a risky joke on his expense or not. The seeming honesty mixed with tension in her voice was making it difficult.

"Hmm, there isn't much money in something so altruistic as that, Miss Griffin," he baited. "Are you sure you have the right career mapped out? Do you plan to work pro bono for the rest of your life?"

"Not very realistic, don't you think?" she countered, steadying her breathing. Being shot down by teachers was old hat to her, but she was determined to let this windbag know that she was serious and for him to back off. "But this isn't about money. Sometimes money can't help these people. It's not even an issue."

The students, the ones who weren't playing with their hair or talking amongst themselves, sat spellbound by the duel that was being waged.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Kingsfield called out in mock-surprise, making Meg's face flush pink. "I daresay that we have the makings of an ethical champion in our midst. Would you like free legal counsel with your Happy Meal?" The laughter that came was expected, he knew. He looked back at her.

"Miss Griffin, money may not be the issue, that's true enough, but, then again, there is nothing wrong with acquiring remuneration for services rendered, either," he misinterpreted, reveling in his pomposity. "This is not a school for martyrs. Who he or she represents should have no reflection on whether or not said lawyer makes money. The ethical lawyer can get paid for what he or she does as much as the corrupt. He or she would certainly have deserved it, and in this class, you will learn how to do that the old fashioned way…you will _earn_ it."

Meg scoffed. She didn't come all this way to be lectured and made a cautionary tale of. "Well, hopefully, I'll have understood how to _be_ a good lawyer the old fashioned way…I'll have _learned_ it," she mocked.

Now it was Kingsfield's turn to look like an indignant beet. Looking up at the students' amused faces was taking needed wind from his blustering sails. He stood straight, his chest puffed up like some perturbed species of bird, and he challenged her.

"You, my dear will not graduate this school, let alone pass my class, because you lack the discipline. You haven't _yearned_ it."

The students _oohed_ at the comeback as Meg let her bookbag fall to the floor and grasped the top of her desk, eyes focused on Kingsfield in a stubborn glare.

"Don't be so sure about that table, chances are, I'll have _turned_ it," she shot back.

"If a law degree's in _your_ hand, in good conscience, you should've _burned_ it," he countered.

"If it turns into a pile of ash, I'll have proudly swept it up and… _urn-ed_ it."

Everyone was momentarily perplexed at Meg's seeming use of the word _earned_ after his or her teacher had just used it last, until she smugly spelled it out…

" _U-r-n_ -e-d."

The students, impressed by the clever turn of phrase, rewarded Meg with a burst of murmuring applause and wondered what Kingsfield would say to top that.

Kingsfield's mind was buzzing with what to say, scowling more in thought than to what this cheeky girl was doing. He thought for a second to simply stall until the bell rang and class was dismissed, but he and, worst of all, they, would know that he failed this little challenge Meg threw at him. He would give as well as he got.

"Take some Maalox for your gut, child. Your first case will have _churned_ it."

"Ha! I'll stay on that case, until the judge has _adjourned_ it," she fired back.

"Your disbarment trial's due. Your mistakes will have _concerned_ it."

"Yeah, and then they saw my true greatness. Yes, the court easily _discerned_ it."

"Really? In a battle of wits, my mind seized yours and then, wholeheartedly, _interned_ it," he said slyly.

"My mind is much more flexible, Teach. I've outwitted you and _returned_ it."

Back and forth the two combatants went, the students' heads turning from Meg to Kingsfield as though they were watching a tight game of tennis.

"Miss Griffin, on the road to excellence, I have _sojourned_ it," Kingsfield said, actually trying to get through to her despite the rhyme.

"So?" Meg retorted, noticing his tone and responding back to him in kind. "Of the road of mediocrity, can't you see that I have _spurned_ it?"

The teacher heard that clearly. A declaration if ever there was one. Maybe she did have what it took.

The bell rang suddenly, ending the match and calling the students to the exits like sirens to the sea, all thoughts of this game of one-upmanship forgotten.

The class was emptied by the time Meg set her bookbag on her back and was about to leave up the aisle. The sound of Kingsfield calling for her halted her steps.

"Yes?"

"Miss Griffin, I need to understand something," he said. "You said that it was very important that you learn law from me. Why, exactly? There are other instructors you could have chosen from within the parameters of the school system."

Meg let her guard down and answered. "I asked around. People said that you were the toughest teacher here. They also said that you were the best. I _need_ the best, so I came to you. I wasn't lying when I said that people's lives were at stake, and I don't know if you'd believe me if I told you the whole story, but I really need you to teach me everything you can. I promise, I'll learn everything you can give me. It's _that_ important."

For what seemed like the first time today, Kingsfield let out a sigh and relaxed. _She had drive, this one_ , he thought. _A little rough around the edges, but can be taught_.

"Alright, Miss Griffin. I will take you up on your offer. I will teach and you will most assuredly learn."

"Thanks, Professor Kingsfield," Meg said, a smile beaming from her face as she could actually, impossibly, hear in her mind, the cueing-up of music, the oh-so-familiar sign of a montage, a blessed montage, finally coming up. "You won't regret it."

It didn't take long for Meg to experience the phenomenon firsthand as time began to become compressed and moments became more cinematically pronounced and musically synced, as Meg's college life began to flow from one "scene" to another…

_Meg continuing to go to class, the pile of books in her vicinity noticeably bigger._

_Meg makes friends with The Paupers._

_Meg enjoying her first dorm room, and she and some female Paupers try to "realistically" fend off a panty raid._

_Meg and some Paupers enjoying the local coffee house scene and later, her enrolling in a secret sorority, where she is properly initiated by having to streak through campus, and instead, accidentally running through a charity alumni ball._

_Meg still studying, this time in Study Hall._

_Meg and some Paupers sneaking around the campus at night, trying to solve a mystery as Mystery Inc. Meg is dressed as "Velma"._

_Meg is the new drummer and singer in a college band._

_Meg going through a Goth phase._

_Meg going to a rave with music provided strangely by Perry Mason, showcased as "DJ P. Mason", getting drunk and waking up the next day in bed next to an equally hungover Brad Alan._

_Meg and the rest of the class enjoying lessons provided by substitute teacher Matt Murdock. Matt mistakenly writes on the classroom window, thinking it's the blackboard. Meg is about to warn him of this, when Matt puts too much pressure on the glass and his arm goes through the window, cutting it badly._

_Meg studying even harder, eventually becoming Kingsfield's teaching assistant. One day, she's writing on the blackboard when two G-men come into the classroom and interrupt her class. After a short chat, she goes over to the professor's desk, pulls out a large, old bible, opens it and shows the men a picture of the Ark of the Covenant in use._

_Meg having her first mock trial, defending Seth MacFarland against Matt Groening and then vice-versa, as prosecutor._

_All the while, to the outside observer, superimposed calendar months flutter to the ground, as whole years pass by…_

Then one day, in class, Professor Kingsfield stood in front of his well-worn wooden desk and said to the class, "Seniors, the final exams will be held soon. This will make up a significant portion of your grade and it is most likely that this will determine whether on not you will graduate."

His eyes scanned the students' face, watching for the expressions that would tell him if anybody was worried because they hadn't studied or if others were cool and confident about the news.

"Do well," he said before class was dismissed.

Meg sat in the crowded cafeteria waiting for the rest of her friends as they stood in line to get their food, served by the elderly attorney Matlock in a hair net. It was then that she noticed the familiar black robe of Death flowing between the chatting, eating multitude, heading to her table.

"Hey, Death."

"How are you, kid?" he asked conversationally as he sat across from her. "I heard that little exchange you and your teacher had earlier. What was that, dueling Dr. Seusses?"

Meg scoffed good-naturedly. "Whatever. Anyway, thanks for the advice about Brad Alan and the Billy Zabka line. That montage worked like a charm."

"No problem, but I came here to let you know that we don't have much time here. A little while longer so you can take your test and see how you came out, and then we're outta here."

"Okay," Meg said before taking a bite of her lunch. "I think I'm going to miss this place when I get back home. It certainly gave me something to think about, career-wise."

Now it was Death's turn to scoff good-naturedly. "What? You thinking about being a lawyer full-time? Meg Griffin, Metaphysical Attorney."

Meg blushed slightly at such a grand, if not strange, occupational description.

"Well, maybe not all of this flying around and stuff, but I can see how this could be a worthwhile thing for me to get into someday, y'know?"

Her thoughts of the pride and prestige of a legal practice started to fade at the sight of some of her friends, The Paupers, approaching her, their faces worried and sober.

"What's up, guys?" Meg asked. "What's wrong?"

A blond girl with glasses spoke in urgent, low tones. "Meg, we just came from the girls' dorm. We were looking for you when we saw your dorm room. You better come with us. It's not pretty."

Meg got up, leaving her lunch and a concerned Death at the table, as she followed the knot of people out of the exit and into the campus daylight.

The crowd of female students, teachers and security that clustered around the threshold of Meg's dorm room gave Meg a moment's pause before she gathered her pluck and maneuvered past them all into the room.

She stopped ahead of them in shock to see the room destroyed, her paperwork scattered and her books still burning in some areas of the room. Her mattress was slashed deeply and left on the floor, her goldfish bowl was smashed and its occupants lay dead beside it. Graffiti dominated the walls with crude, ugly words and pictures, noticeably a sentence written large that says, "Pauper, don't preach…"

One of the teachers came up to Meg from behind, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Are you okay? Don't worry, we'll find out who did this, Meg," she said. "I'll take you to Campus Security, so you can file a report, and then you can come back here, if you like."

From the teacher's position, she couldn't see Meg's face fall with sad resignation. Meg said nothing as she walked away from the crime scene.


	4. 4

She didn't know how she wound up in the spacious lobby back at the Daniel Webster School of Law. All Meg knew was that her mind was in a sad funk and that walking around robotically was a better alternative to thinking at the moment.

She had gotten used to the place by now, and the lobby was the first thing she saw on her way to class everyday, but today the place was empty and it seemed to offer no comfort.

All around her were the trappings of legal academia. The plaques and awards, the licenses and pennants, the photos of honored pedagogues in golden frames, and the painting.

Meg always noticed it, but now, she felt drawn to it. Its size dominated the walls of the place and lent some of its theme to the ambiance therein. There, for the world to see, was an old, brush-stroked portrait of lawyer Daniel Webster famously defending his client against the Devil, the flaming jury of the damned residing in the background.

She just stared at it mindlessly, letting her subconscious swim in the silent drama of the picture. The heroism was there and it was telling her something deep and profound.

Was her dealing with what happened to her room today preparing her for what she would one day soon face? Was the pain of the injustice the fire that would temper her for the battle to come?

All she could see was the old lawyer in the legal fight of his life, and in some way, she took solace in that. Maybe because he was the underdog, taking on more than he could chew, or perhaps because he just believed in himself that much more than usual, she could feel his spirit, captured in his painted eyes, face, and body language, stirring her own.

He wasn't fighting for himself, he was clearly duking it out with Old Scratch for someone who desperately needed his help.

And with that, Meg was snapped out of her funk. Jennifer needed her, too, and here she was feeling down when she should have been doing what Ol' Daniel was doing. Planning for the battle ahead. Thinking of a way to win. Waging ungodly war on her enemies. Just like a lawyer.

The mind was the greatest tool the lawyer could ever possess. Her professors stressed that fact to her, history demonstrated that fact to her, and today, her vandals forced that fact on her. With a smile, she was grateful for the lesson.

Meg cocked up an eyebrow and decided to act. She already knew who done the deed, and so whatever happened next wouldn't take too long to resolve. Thus, calm cunning started to flow amidst the ice in her veins, while she began to formulate wicked, wicked plans…

Meg finally left the Campus Security office after a lengthy question and answer session, grateful that it wasn't sundown just yet.

She looked up and down the campus, her eyes sifting through unwanted people like a miner's fingers sifting gold from sediment. She was a huntress, prowling while daylight was still given to her, knowing her prey would wander off when dusk came and campus rules gave it shelter.

Small groups were the main tell, she knew. The prey clung together like sheep, like deer, or any other small-minded beast.

Meg was about to move to another part of the quad when her eyes caught the suddenly familiar color of a cardigan draped over broad shoulders some distance away. She mentally licked her chops.

Brad Alan and his cronies casually stood by a statue, chatting and chattering about nothing of any great consequence. As he angled his head indolently to check out a pretty girl walking by, Brad Alan's eyes caught sight of Meg calmly walking slowly, almost like a stalk, towards him.

"What do you want?" Brad Alan sneered contentedly. "You didn't get enough trouble today?"

"You know, that's an interesting question to ask," Meg said coolly. "You might have heard that my room was broken into today. You wouldn't have anything to say on the matter, would you?"

"Yeah, I would, but it's not the sort of thing a lady should hear, which mean, I guess, you better listen up-"

Meg raised her hand to interrupt. "Ah, before you dazzle us with your rapier wit, take a look at this." She held up her cell phone.

Brad Alan looked at it in confusion; at the same time he was wondering what Meg was up to, coming here so boldly. He couldn't figure either out, but he recognized a con when it was presented to him, or at least, that was what he believed.

"What's that?" he joked to his friends. "One of those… _feminine_ products?"

Meg waited until the chuckles subsided enough to be heard. "No, Brad. Hilarious, but no. See, this is a cell phone." She opened the cover so that they could see the number and control pad.

"That's bull," Brad Alan scoffed. "My uncle owns a cell phone dealership. They don't look like that. Get out of here, you nut job."

"Oh, but they do look like this where I come from," Meg maintained unperturbed, speaking to the gang as though they were shameless rubes and she was the Queen of the Carnie Barkers. "In fact, this one is so special, it has its own camera. Ooooh."

She turned the phone around and pointed carefully to a small lens situated just at the top and rear of the device. "Watch."

Meg pressed a button on the phone's face, then turned the phone back around so that the numbers and, more importantly, its small screen could be shown. On the screen was a still image of Brad Alan and his gang.

"Whoa!" exclaimed one crony. "That's amazing. Where did you get that?"

"Yeah," Brad Alan agreed suspiciously. "Where _did_ you get that thing?"

Meg pocketed the phone and looked nonchalant as she gave him a smile. "Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about where I got this. I'd worry more about where you guys'll be going after today."

"What are you talking about?" asked another friend of Brad's.

"Well, truth be told, I secretly filmed your little romp through my room with my camera. Shocking, isn't it?"

Brad Alan laughed dismissively at the comment, but he could also sense the building panic ratcheting up among his constituents. His arrogance finally forced him to speak up, lest his own misgivings cripple him with guilty fear

"That's bull, Griffin. I mean, sure we did it. What did you think _you_ could about it? But how could you have filmed us in your room? You couldn't have known when we'd come in and trash it."

Her smile flowed suddenly into a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that abruptly terrified him inside with cold clarity.

"You're right," she said simply.

Campus Security forces appeared from all around them like predators in their own right. Crowds and single students slowed their paces and rubbernecked at the spectacle, as officers handcuffed shamed-faced cronies and walked them off to the station.

As one officer placed Brad Alan's hands together for cuffing, he blurted out in shock, "Wha-What did you do?"

"Me?" Meg asked demurely. "Well, I had these nice men put a bug on me so that they could hear everything you said, once I told them that you had something to do with my room. All I had to do was lie about me taking pictures of you in my room so you'd confess. Neat, huh?"

The hubris that struck him felt like a physical blow as Brad Alan was turned around and hauled noisily away. "You're just a Pauper! You don't belong here! My father'll get me out and then I'll have your ass for lunch!

"Ooh, promises, promises," Meg cooed in mock-arousal to the departing bully. She gave him a wave and then looked around cursorily at the students that still remained in the area.

She was about to leave and go back to the girls' dormitory to clean up when some appreciative applause, mostly from the women, and a few respectful whistles, mostly from the men, softly came her way. Apparently young Mister Chatsworth was a perennial thorn in a fair portion of the student body.

As Meg bashfully shrugged off the accolade with a lopsided smile, and the admirers began going their separate ways in the quad, she produced a cigar from a back pocket and chomped on it from one side of her mouth.

"I love it when a plan comes together," she growled satisfactorily.

* * *

 

The next day, Meg was feeling anything but cool and collected outside Professor Kingsfield's classroom. This was it. Test day. The finals. This would be for all the marbles.

It took Meg most of last night to put her room right before cramming over a good portion of her class work later on. The only reason she wasn't sleeping standing up, she knew, was because she was way too wired.

Because other students were milling around outside the classroom, as well, giving pep talks to themselves, Meg didn't feel too self-conscious about talking to Death as he lounged against a nearby wall.

"Not too shabby with Brad and his bunch yesterday," Death congratulated her. "I gotta admit, you can get pretty mean when ya put your mind to it."

"Thanks," she said nervously. "I just hope I can ace this test. The time I spent here will be for nothing if I don't graduate." Meg took a shuddering breath. "Ugh! I wish I could just montage this test and get it over with."

"Yeah," Death commiserated. "But montages only affect time not action. You'd still have to do the test and there'd be no guarantee that you'd pass or flunk…unless you passed or flunked. Anyway, come hell or high water, forgive the pun, we have to motor when this is done."

"Right," she said sullenly.

Death shrugged amicably. "Hey, cheer up. It could be worse. You could have been a competitor in _X-treme Spelling Bee…_ "

_Six high school kids stood abreast on what appeared to be the wooden surface of an auditorium's stage, watching one of their number, a girl, walk nervously forward to a mic stand._

_A bespectacled moderator, holding a sheet of paper and standing behind a podium below them, glanced up at her and said soothingly, "Now, Susie, the word is ornithorhyncus. Don't be nervous."_

_Any observer in the audience could now see the reason for Susie's discomfiture. The scene opens up to show that she has walked underneath a gallows, a noose firm around her neck, while nearby, a teacher with a sadistic grin, has her grip eagerly tight around the lever that will drop the girl down the trap door she's standing on._

" _Any time," the moderator consoled her…_

The school bell rang raucously through the halls and it seemed to Meg as though it were a death knell.

"Well, wish me luck," she said. Death said nothing in response but he gave her a skeletal thumbs-up instead.

The doors finally opened and the students slowly filed inside like prisoners on the final mile.

Meg made sure she entered last.

The dorm room looked more or less respectable after Meg's ministrations the previous night. The paperwork and essays were recovered, posters covered graffiti that was too unseemly to be seen, the mattress was flipped over so that the bed was made again, and the school replaced the books that were destroyed by fire.

Death idly picked up one of Meg's dead goldfish that she missed in the clean up and plopped it into the wastepaper basket, for lack of something to do while he waited for her to return after class.

Despite his insouciant nature, he felt as anxious as she had. He wanted her to succeed so she could continue, but if she flunked, she'd have to make do some other way, which would be riskier to say the least.

Death took a seat by Meg's desk and looked around the room.

"Reminds me of my days at Kent State," he mused. Then the door opened.

Meg Griffin schlepped her weary self into the room and then flopped unceremoniously onto the bed.

"How did it go?" Death asked.

"Mmhhmm…" Meg droned into the pillow, not really caring if she expired again, this time of asphyxiation.

"In English, please?"

"Mmhhmhhhh…"

"Much better. Well, I guess we'll find out in a few days when they post the results, huh?" Death said.

Meg turned around on her back, for one, to breathe, and for another, to say sleepily, "I wish we could know now. The suspense is killing me."

"Piece of cake," he said as he lazily tapped the handle of his scythe against the floor. The numbers on the face of the clock nearest the bed flipped in a second from its current time to sometime in early afternoon, its date was now a full week ahead.

"Wha?" Meg moaned as she wiped away at sleep that was forming on her eyes and the now noonday sunshine.

"We're a week from when you just walked in," Death explained. "The test results should be posted by now."

Meg promised herself that she would be suitably impressed by Death's mastery of time after she had gotten some rest.

"Great," Meg said while yawning. "I'm just gonna take a nap. Didn't have much time to cram while I was cleaning up." She curled into a cozy ball and began to relax. "Wake me up in about an hour, okay?" Then she slept.

"Some senior," Death scoffed softly. "In my day, I could tear up two parties, study for a test, and still have energy to pick up half of Europe during the plague. Kids today have no stamina."

Meg's rebuttal was a long drawn out snore.

* * *

 

Students crowded Assembly Hall, jockeying for position to see their grade for the last time.

Meg, newly energized from sleep, and now apprehension, fought for a view from her position in the throng. She also felt as if she should just run away rather than find out if she passed. The suspense was that palatable.

Meg saw an opening and squeezed past two people, and despite her being subsequently jostled, managed to quickly scan up and down the columns of names for her own.

"G's. G's," Meg whispered to herself as she kept looking. "G's. A-ha!"

She put all of her attention on the G list, going down the last names that were alphabetically arranged. G-r's were next.

Another jostle hit her, knocking her glasses askew, but right before she recovered, she glanced up and saw in her shaken point of view, _Griffin_ , _Meg,_ and a block of numbers next to it. Desperate, she pushed back into the wall of humans, trying to force herself through.

With effort, Meg aimed her head towards the rough direction she saw "Griffin" on the list, trying to line up the name with the series of numbers she just saw.

An anxiety-fueled adrenaline rush hit her at the same time an elbow to the side of the head did, but now the numbers seemed clearer for a scant, shaky moment. Her numbers.

_That were deficient by a point…_

Meg lost her footing in the continuous shoving and fell to the floor, completely numb. The sum history of pain her family put her through couldn't equal the fathomless, gnawing fear she felt just now. The fear of failing Jennifer, of dooming her to eternal damnation because of a flunked test. If the students trampled her now, she knew she'd feel nothing.

She got up slowly, ignoring the wrestling masses around her. She would hate having to tell Death that she failed but that discomfort would be paltry next to telling Jennifer herself.

But, she slowly decided, before she did any of that, she would have to make one last visit to the man she felt she disappointed as much as anyone else. It seemed honor demanded it so.

Professor Kingsfield's classroom was empty but the energy of the previous class still hummed in its walls as Kingsfield sat by his desk, grading papers and sipping his tea.

He almost didn't notice the doors opening and a sullen Meg stepping in, quiet as Death himself. He looked up and sipped another bit of tea as she walked down the aisle towards him.

"What can I do for you, Miss Griffin?"

The light in her eyes was as dim as her spirit as she approached his desk, her head hung low. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could find some hemlock, would you?" she asked with gallows humor.

"Thinking of keeping Socrates company, hmm?" he joked dryly.

"I don't think Socrates had my kind of day, Professor."

"Well, he was forced to drink _his_ cup. Why would you want yours, my dear?"

Meg felt like she was tortured into speaking, and the speaking, itself, was torture. "Because…Because, I failed the test, sir. I failed you. I said that I would learn from you, but I didn't keep my end of the bargain. I wasted my time here, and yours, and now someone I really care about is going to…suffer for it. I'm so sorry, sir." Her stomach felt like stone.

Perplexed, Kingsfield put aside his pen and students' papers to focus his attention on her. "What on Earth do you mean, child?"

Meg, even more perplexed, couldn't understand why this was so hard to understand. Didn't she already feel lower than the soles on Pol Pot's loafers? Did he need for her to spell it out further? The wasted work and the compressed, yet wasted years?

She sighed with a shudder, close to tears, and tried again.

"Sir, I didn't pass your test. I saw the results posted in Assembly Hall. I-I didn't make it."

Kingsfield looked at her for a long moment, as if weighing whether or not to do anything for fear of another emotional outburst. He sighed in slight exasperation of the situation and opened a drawer in the desk. He pulled out a thin stack of papers that were held together with paper clips.

He turned some of the papers over, adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and read aloud. Meg felt like she could have died, yet again.

She passed by one point.

Meg simply did not believe it. Based on her past experiences with hardly ever getting an even break, she didn't know if she _wanted_ to believe it. She shook her head slowly, to clear the obvious foolishness from her mind. This was a trick, a joke. It had no choice but to be.

And yet she didn't want to jinx it if it were true. Part of her felt shame for doubting all of this, but she couldn't help it. She was just having such a hard time believing it.

"No way," she whispered, more to herself than to him.

Kingsfield held the paper, a copy of the test results for his classes, up so that she could see her name clearly. The moment was dreamlike.

The scream that blasted from her came from a long way, deep inside her, and scared the professor so badly, he jumped and some of the papers came apart in his hands.

Meg giggled like a madwoman as she gave the professor the biggest hug possible and then stooped down to quickly help Kingsfield gather the wayward pages.

"I'm sorry, Professor Kingsfield. I-I can't believe it. I passed! I passed! I'm a lawyer!" Then the reality of that statement hit her with hard sobriety. "I'm a lawyer."

"That's right, Miss Griffin," Kingsfield said as he composed himself at his chair. "You are a lawyer. You are now a part of a noble and treasured heritage that spans centuries. People will look to _you_ to help them in their time of greatest need, and with the power of attorney, you will uphold that obligation."

Meg stood still, her heart thundering in her chest, but her demeanor was calm now, thoughtful and poised. The empty classroom took on the quality of a church, and it felt with his words, as though she were draped in a mantle of office. That she was being ordained.

"Yes, sir." Then a thought came back to her. "But, if I did pass, then who did I see with the failing grade named Griffin?"

Kingsfield peered at the paper once again and then said, "Ah! Here was your problem. You must not have seen your results on the list clearly. You somehow must have saw the results _below_ yours and thought it was yours."

"Oh," Meg said, slightly taken aback. "Then whose results did I see?"

The professor was about to answer that when the doors opened again and an elderly man with silvery hair, in a crisp, dark suit, stuck his head inside and yelled angrily.

"You know, I've had it with this fly-by-night school of yours. Do you know how many television deals I could have made just by being my own lawyer? Fuck you!"

The man then left in a huff as Meg finally got her answer. " _Merv_ Griffin's," Professor Kingsfield said.

* * *

 

It was a beautiful day for graduation, thanks to time being bent to Death's will once again. Meg walked alongside a publicly invisible Death, wearing an anxious smile along with her mortarboard and gown, and feeling like the belle of the ball.

They made it to the graduates' seating area fashionably late, and sat in the last two chairs there, listening to the speaker up front on stage calling out names.

"You know," Meg asked while rooting around in her pocket for something. "I always wanted to know what this day was like. I haven't graduated from James Woods yet, but I always pictured something like this."

Death slouched in his wooden chair, taking in the scenery with a measured turn of his hooded head. "Yeah, it's not too bad. Been to a million of 'em. 'Course it's at the after-graduation parties that things really pick up. I think I get invited to more of those things than I should, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Meg nodded in understanding, and then told him, "Well, I still want to thank you for everything you did. I'd have never even made it this far without your help."

Death waved it off with a bony hand. "Ah, don't sweat it, Meg. As long as you put those smarts to use when the time come, it's all copasetic." Then he noticed something in her hand. "What's that?"

"Oh, this? It's just something to keep me from getting nervous, that's all." she said as she maneuvered her fingers and expanded her hands amidst the twine web of the cat's cradle.

Death nodded towards a small group of women teachers a few yards away. "I really like what they done to the place. They got a way better curriculum than I thought."

Meg followed his gaze at them. "Aren't you a little too old for them?" she teased.

"No way!" he defended. "Don't let these looks fool ya. It's just stress. This job can really beat ya up. In fact, I'll betcha that I'll get one of their phone numbers before the day's out."

"Alright," Meg said. "Loser buys pizza."

"Deal." Then Death cocked his head toward the stage. "I think they're callin' out the G's now."

"Yeah, I heard them call out "Grey" just now. Wait…Whoa! They said my name! I'm up! Okay, I'll be back in a minute!"

Meg pocketed her cat's cradle, stood quickly, and then crab-walked past other seated students, pardoning her self every step of the way.

She finally emerged from the row of chairs and hurried up the path to the stage, holding her cap clumsily to her head to keep it from falling.

Meg was slightly winded from the pseudo-dignified trot she took upon reaching the stage. With a nervous giggle she stood more or less poised to receive her diploma.

Too nervous to think of using her sweaty, free hand, she took her other hand out of her pocket to hold the sheepskin, but her fingers were tangled in the knotted string of her wayward cat's cradle.

Meg engaged both hands to the task of freeing the one and unconsciously turned to face the podium while she was occupied.

The string had bound her hand into a loose fist and as she managed, with her other hand, to begin working her fingers out of the net of twine, her middle finger suddenly shot out of the mesh while constricting the other fingers back into an even tighter fist.

The area went into a shocked silence as they watched what appeared to many to be Meg Griffin giving everybody the finger. Meg was the first to not understand the sudden quiet and the last to notice the inadvertent gesture she was displaying.

When she finally looked down at the offending appendage and then out at the sea of pissed-off people, her brain shut down in fear, and she, despite herself, instinctively channeled her father's moronically nervous giggle, snatched her diploma, and ran like hell.

The seating area was emptied in a heartbeat. The angry grads ran together in a jeering hunting pack after Meg, who valiantly kept her lead while screaming for help.

Death, who had taken the time to chat with the teachers he had his eyeball-less sights on earlier, didn't hear Meg at all.

Meg turned this way and that across the quad, hoping to lose them, but apparently some were athletics in their own right and gaining on her was quickly becoming an eventuality.

Meg spotted a low-sloped knoll up the distance and made a break for it, hoping the sudden change in terrain would slow them down. It did. For _her_.

So marked was her deceleration and the dew that coated the grass that she slipped and tumbled to the base of the little hill on her back.

Exhausted, she propped herself up on her elbows to see the mob carefully descending the slope and surrounding her on all sides.

Diplomatically, Meg sputtered, "Wait! Wait! It's not my fault. Look, it was my cat cradle! It got all tangled up. See?"

She raised her hands and tried to once again disentangle herself from the fiendish string, but this time she had gotten all of her fingers worked into the snare.

She pulled her hands apart to show them the familiar latticework of the cat's cradle, but the tangles and knotting created a new work that would have made "Charlotte", of Charlotte's Web fame, proud, _if_ she wrote naughty words and phrases over Zuckerman's barn.

The jeering grew louder and the pack closed the space around Meg more tightly as they all read the spindly words, "Eat Shit" in the center of the cradle.

Meg saw it and quickly brought her hands down, giggling to placate and failing. With the ironic knowledge that Death might just as soon pick her up as rescue her, and with a look of fearful defeat in her eyes, Meg said unto the crowd, "Uh, my hands have Tourette's Syndrome?"

The masses fell upon her and all went black.


	5. 5

Meg awoke to a sensation not of pain, but of cold linoleum.

The moments of the chase and the inevitable attack on the hill were still fresh in her mind, as she felt her mother kneeling beside her, trying to sit her upright.

"Meg?" Lois called to her softly. "Meg? Are you all right, sweetheart?"

With her consciousness ascending back to normal, Meg could just recognize the nasal tones of Lois through the mental haze. What was _she_ doing at the university?

"Mom? What…happened? Where am I? Back at graduation?" she muttered. "Tell the crowd I didn't…mean anything…with flipping them off…and the dirty cat's cradle."

Lois was at odds with what to say about that. Principal Sheppard, standing nearby, certainly didn't know what to make of his student's behavior either.

"Honey," Lois said to Meg while getting her to her feet and walking her over to one of the two chairs in front of the principal's desk. "You fainted when you opened the door, Sweetie. You've been out for a few minutes."

"Fainted?" Meg asked groggily.

"Yes, dear. I told Principal Sheppard that it was just low blood sugar and that you'll be fine."

Meg looked up at Sheppard, a little ashamed for what she thought she might have done. "Sorry, Principal Sheppard. I…hope I didn't drool too much on your floor."

Sheppard settled in his leather high back chair and laced his pudgy fingers together, attempting to look both imperious and conciliatory at the same time.

"That's quite alright, Miss Griffin," he said as he pulled out some papers from a drawer in the desk. "No harm done to the wax job. Now, I have the paperwork for you and your mother to sign. Afterwards, you can hold the hands of cry-babies while they suck from your emotional teat."

"All right, Principal Sheppard," said Lois, apparently not to noticing the snide remark as she leaned forward, perused the paperwork and then signed her name at its bottom.

Meg followed suit, and as she listened to the two adults drone on about the legalities of Meg's new "job", she just leaned back against her chair, trying to get her head around what an incredible dream everything was before she woke.

A few minutes later, it was time to leave, and Meg hoisted her book bag from the floor with one hand, a rolled up sheet still held in the other. She was just now aware of it.

She unfurled it slowly, wondering what it was. The words, "St. Montage's University, West Beach, California. This certifies that Megan Griffin has completed…" were emblazoned on its surface.

' _The diploma?'_ she thought incredulously. ' _It was real?'_

Lois, who was already in the hallway outside the office, glanced back to see Meg rolling up a parchment-like piece of paper.

"Come on, Meg. Let's go," she told her, and then asked, "What's that in your hand?"

Meg looked up from the roll to Lois as though coming out of the dream again. Then she opened her bag and slid the roll inside.

"Er, classwork," she lied, as she zipped up the bag and joined her mother outside.

* * *

 

At home, Meg relaxed on her bed, her mind absorbing in more detail the entirety of her day, in particular, the several _years'_ study she thought she did but now wasn't so sure.

Except that she understood the law, and not in any way that a layman might understand it. She knew it as fluently as if it were her native tongue. Every process, every term, every law it seemed was accessible in her mind. Apart from actual courtroom experience, she was potently armed.

She glanced over to the book bag lying on the floor nearby, thinking about the roll of parchment inside it. The proof, as best she could admit to it, that she was enrolled in a strange university after her…death?

Yet here she was, alive and relatively well. _'What did Death do to me?'_ she thought.

Meg got up, went to her radio/CD player and put in a disk. She made it back to bed and reclined just as the music started. She stretched the weariness from her body and blew out a tired breath. There was a lot to think about before the next move was made and it was made clear to her that there wasn't much time.

She closed her eyes and let the music carry her off, her head bobbing to the rhythm slowly.

Then there was a soft knock on the door.

' _Probably that fat-assed Chris, playing around like the arrested development case that he is',_ she thought in frustration. With a deep breath, she called out tiredly, "Yeah?"

The door opened and Death entered as easy as he pleased. Meg saw him, sighed and settled more in her bed.

"What now, Death? I just got back from school and I'm beat."

"So am I," he said, taking a seat on her chair near her computer desk. "You try snatching somebody from one dimension to the next at the last minute. Especially when that somebody pisses off an entire university. Man, I thought lynching was the worse they were gonna do to ya."

Meg sat up instantly. "University? I _was_ there! I really _was_ there. How did I get there?"

Death cocked his head in an upward angle, as though he were rolling his non-existent eyes. "Uh, duh! I took you there. Remember?"

Meg thought for a moment. Her mental clock felt badly off. She could recall events that happened today and yet could also recall events of things she apparently did years ago and in places that weren't initially familiar. She felt like an alien abductee that was getting missing segments of her life back in a rush.

"Wait. Yeah, I remember! You took me to the mansion where Jennifer and the others died. Then you…" She paused at the potency of the act to come. "You _killed_ me? And then we wound up somewhere cloudy and then you said that we were in a university. Saint…Montague's or something? Am I right?"

Death shrugged his shoulders slightly and nodded. "More or less, yeah."

"Well, how did I get back?" Meg asked. "I thought I was gonna get killed by some mob, but I was already dead, wasn't I? How did you bring me back to life?"

Again, Death shrugged nonchalantly. "Elementary, my dear flesh bag. I didn't kill you."

In her best Arnold Drummond, Meg asked, "Whachu talkin' 'bout, Death?"

"I didn't kill you," he explained. "I can't bring people back to life. I'm Death, not a Happy Ending in a massage parlor. I brought you back _in time_ so you could see what happened to Jennifer and the others, so you'd understand what's going on. _Then_ , and this is the neat trick, I sent you to…" Death gestured dramatically and said in an equally mock-dramatic tone. " _another dimension._ "

Meg was thunderstruck at the impossibility of it all. "A what?"

" Yep," Death continued smugly. "A parallel universe where the space/time continuum is controlled by movies from the 1980's. Booya!"

"But why?"

"C'mon. You were pitchin' a fit about not being able to do anything, so I took you to the one place I knew you could get a decent education in what you needed in no time flat. You certainly weren't gonna get it in _this_ country."

Meg considered that, and then a question hit her. "Well, then, why did you make me think I was dead or something?"

"So you'd be less inclined to back out of going to the school. It's not like I coulda force you or anything. You'd have to _want_ to go."

"Oh," was Meg's last word on the subject. But then she thought about all the work she actually did do there at the university, time-compressed via cinematic convention or not. The knowledge was permanent as were the memories, and it was all Death's amazing idea.

"Wow, thanks, Death, " she said with grateful understanding. "I guess I _did_ need a boot up my ass to motivate me."

Death gave Meg a reassuring point of his bony hand shaped like a gun. "Hey, happy to be of help. What was that, anyway, like a size 15 wide?"

"Ha, ha," Meg deadpanned.

"Anyway. What happened after you came back? Did your mom say anything?" he asked.

Meg sighed. "Mom was too busy getting my face off the floor to say much. I looked like Dad after an all-nighter. Anyway, thanks to her and Principal Sheppard, I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon at the offices where the magazine is published. Sort of a get-to-know-you deal."

"That's wonderful, Meg. Really," Death said in mock-congratulation. "I'm so happy this is all going your way…however, you have an interview that you have to get to _tonight_."

"What?" Meg protested, not believing she wasn't going to get any sleep, and on top of that, have to figure out how to sneak out so the folks wouldn't know what was going on.

Death brought up his hands in empathy. "Sorry, kid. You're a lawyer, now. You'll have to go to Limbo. That's where your friend and the other kids are staying until the end of the trial. You'll have to interview 'em before the trial."

"C'mon, Death. I can't stay up all night. I told you I have that appointment tomorrow. I'm not going there with bags under my eyes so big, I need a concierge. Can't I reschedule or something?"

"No," he said with a certain note of finality. Meg hung her head down in worry. How could she juggle two different lives now, one for the sake of a friend, and the other for herself?

Death looked at her in pity for a minute more before getting up from his seat and, in his most theatrical, acquiescing to her.

"Alright, alright," he called out in faux-reluctance, though he knew he would have to help her anyway. "I'll help ya out, jeez. Never let it be said that Death wasn't a good friend when the chips are down."

Meg perked up and asked, "You can do something? Reschedule?"

"Nah," Death said as he walked over to where Meg sat up in bed. "Something even cooler."

* * *

 

Night on Spooner Street was as quiet and uneventful as it could be at around two in the morning, and the Griffin household was still in its repose, especially in the bedroom of the daughter.

Meg slept deeply under her covers, wearing a tasteful white blouse, slacks and pumps.

A loose sheet of paper fell off of her desk and fluttered quietly to the floor, and in the still air of the darkness of the bedroom, something stirred invisibly.

Like the dying light of an old movie projector in reverse, a pinprick of a glow was slowly coming into focus in the middle of the room.

The glow took on coherence and shape, the semblance of a human body solidifying in appearance, if not physicality.

The manifestation complete, the ghostly twin of Meg Griffin looked around her room and then to the sleeping body in bed.

' _I did it'_ , she thought in surprise as she looked at her hands and looked down at her body, successfully formed and dressed in the very same clothes the physical form was wearing.

However, she did see something that she didn't expect to. A softly glowing cord of silvery light extended from her back and ran across the floor and up into the covers of her sleeping body.

She went over to the bed and was about to lift the covers to see where the cord was attached on her physical self when she heard the sound of a putting motor announce itself outside her windows.

Meg went to the window overlooking the Swansons' house and peered out onto to the street. A car, a VW Bug, sat idling front of her house.

She fished under her bed and pulled out an old attaché Peter once owned. She opened it up and checked the contents she smuggled in it. Note pads, pens and pencils, and other relevant things all there. She closed it back and carried it with her to her mirror.

Despite her nervousness at her first real action as a lawyer, she looked admiringly at herself. She looked professional, important, confident and competent.

With a bracing sigh, she opened her bedroom door and quietly left her room, noticing that the silver cord silently passed through the door when she closed it behind her and trailed behind her when she walked downstairs.

As she closed and locked the front door, she took another look at the Volkswagen parked by the curb, in particular, the driver's side of it. There, looking as impatient as he could muster, sat Death.

"Jeez, girl," he muttered in low tones out of the driver's side window. "What were you doing? Putting on make-up? We gotta go."

"Okay, okay," Meg said as she went around to the front passenger side and got in. "You were right, this _is_ pretty cool," she told him.

"Ah, it's just an old party trick. Just keep practicing and it'll get easier, I promise ya."

Meg then asked warily, "You sure I'm _not_ dead, right?"

"Ugh, I told ya already," Death moaned in exasperation. "It's called astral projection, an Out-of Body-Experience. You're perfectly safe. This way you can do what you need to do out here, and your body stays home and sleeps."

"Okay," Meg said guardedly, then she asked, "What's with this string behind me? What does it do?"

"Oh, that?" Death said as he put his car into gear. "Well, that's your silver cord. It connects you to your body. Haven't ya ever read Shirley Maclane?" The look on her face told him that she hadn't. "Anyway, it keeps your body alive while you're floatin' around like this. But be careful, if it breaks, you're worm chow."

"Good to know," Meg gulped. Then, to change the subject, she asked, as the car pulled out into the quiet street, "Do you think we're going to get there in time?"

Death glanced at her casually. "Relax, will ya? We got plenty of time." He suddenly perked up and said to her, "Hey, check this out! "Roads? Where we're going, we won't _need_ roads!" Ah, I always wanted to say that. Okay, hang on."

The VW floated off the street, its tires tucked into its undercarriage. Then it flew a few yards down the street, banked back towards Meg's house and then blasted into the starry night.

* * *

 

The trip was incredibly short to Meg. One moment it was night on Earth, the next, it was daytime on the plane of Limbo. What she didn't expect was what Limbo looked like now, not that she ever knew what it looked like previously.

Except for what she was taught as a Roman Catholic, Meg always thought that Limbo was the kind of place that souls were sent to if they weren't good enough for Heaven, or not bad enough for Hell. An eternal realm for the mediocre.

But this was totally different. It looked for all the world, like a gated community. Death drove up to a tall set of wrought iron gates, leaned out of his window and spoke to a checkpoint intercom that stood off to one side.

"Death and one, to see the mayor," he said to it.

The clanking of metal and the whir of a motor heralded Death's car as the gates parted and they drove into a vast, open seaside land of manicured lawns, red-bricked walkways and quaint homes. To Meg, it all looked like a cross between Cape Cod and an endless suburban tract.

"This is Limbo?" Meg asked and then spied a painted wooden sign on the lawn leading into the administrative courtyard that said," Limbo Minimum Security Village."

Death pulled into the parking lot. "Yeah. Upper management decided to redevelop it. Change its image and all that. Now the inmates get to live it up. You can't leave here, but who'd want to?"

They both got out of the car, yet Meg was becoming fascinated by both the incongruity of her expectations and the ambiance of the place, the down-home folksiness of it all. People were strolling into little shops and cafes, meeting and talking to friends along the picturesque promenade, or riding carriages to or from the beach.

Everything about the place made Meg feel as though she were actually at a seaside community on Earth, instead of one on another plane of existence. However, there was just one thing that Meg kept noticing that continuously took her out of her Norman Rockwell fantasy. Everybody around her wore security ankle bracelets.

Meg followed Death into the courtyard, which was walled on all sides by the various buildings of the administration complex and dominated by a large marble fountain in its center.

"Where are we going?" Meg asked.

"We're going to see The Mayor. Actually, he's just the warden here, but since there's been no trouble since the place went country club, he runs the place like its his own town. People seemed to like it so they call him, 'The Mayor'."

They walked through a main pair of double doors leading to a wide foyer and intersection. A central desk stood before them, manned by a female clerk.

"Do you have an appointment here?" she asked officiously.

"Yeah," Death replied. "We're here to see The Mayor."

The clerk looked at Meg and said to her, "All visitors to the village must wear an ID button at all times." She gestured at a small cardboard box next to her. "Take one."

Meg complied and pulled out a large button that had a number eight in the center of it. She pinned it on and the two continued their trek.

Bustling office workers greeted and passed each other in the halls, and as they parted, they occasionally held their hand up, fingers touching thumb, shaping the hand like a crude telescope, and said, "See you 'round," by way of farewell.

Meg found the exchange strange, as though she had just wandered into the midst of another cult.

They went up the hall of the tastefully decorated building until they reached the end of it. A single door hung on the wall that dead-ended in front of them; the number two was stenciled on its window. Death knocked on the door and then they entered.

The office was surprisingly large, as large as a chamber, but it resembled nothing like the interior of any office. It looked more in common with a war room or a monitoring center.

The ceiling was domed; the walls were curved and adorned with what looked like sky charts and constellations, blinking intermittently. Security officers sat on strange, swaying, see-saw like constructs that supported monitors on their seated ends.

Just up ahead of Meg and Death, where it looked like someone in charge would sit, rested one of those egg chairs from the 1960's. Its back faced them from behind a beautifully carved desk. Behind the chair stood a large bay window overlooking the sea.

The chair silently turned from the window to face forward as the two approached.

"Ah, hello there! You must be the new Number 8," the portly, bearded man in the immaculate suit said as he noticed Meg's button pinned to her blouse. He stood up from his desk and extended a hand to shake. "You may call me Number 2. I'm the head administrator here at Limbo. We were expecting you."

He sat back down as soon as his guests sat down on the two similar chairs in front of the desk. "Now, Number 8...I can _call_ you Number 8, can't I? I understand that you've come here to interview some of the inmates here prior to their trial, correct?"

"Yes, sir," Meg said, looking down at her ID button. "This will be my first case."

"Well, I wish you luck, Number 8, but I wouldn't put much hope in prisoners like these. They're the hardest bunch I ever had to deal with."

Meg looked a little confused. Surely he wasn't referring to the people she just saw when she got here. They seemed pleasant enough.

"You mean the inmates I saw on my way here? They seemed nice," she said.

The warden leaned forward conspiratorially and said in a low tone, "Don't let the quiet fool you for a second, my dear. They're always plotting, always scheming…to escape and to corrupt. They're like little fires. You have to stamp them out before they become big ones."

Meg just glanced over to Death in quiet concern. "I, uh, have all my paperwork, if you'd like to see," she said as she gave her folder from her attaché to the man in hopes of changing the subject. "I hope it's all here, I tried to give as much information as I could."

Number 2 looked through the folder, and then he glared up at Meg, his voice sounding more interrogatory and coldly polite. "So, you couldn't be bothered to give me all of your… _information_ , Number 8?"

Meg felt a little uneasy. So much for a first impression. "Well, like I said, sir. I could only give you what I know. I hope you don't think I'm holding anything from you."

"We'll see, Number 8. By hook or by crook, we will."

"Ohhkay," Meg said pensively.

Number 2 calmly placed the folder on the desk and peered at Meg more intently, as if trying to read her secret motives from within.

"I wonder, have you ever served in the intelligence sector?" he interrogated her quietly. "Have you ever been a… _secret agent, ma'am?_ "

Meg had no idea where these questions were coming from, as they had nothing whatsoever to do with the law or law enforcement. She was beginning to think that this guy was a certified wacko.

"Uh, no, sir. I haven't. Look does this have anything to do with my interview here?"

"Don't try to change the subject, Number 8," he challenged in a strong voice. "I can see now that I'll have to play chess with you very carefully. I do hope you'll prove to be a worthy opponent."

Meg felt like she was in a play that she didn't know the lines to. "Ohhkay," she said again, this time trying a better tactic in dealing with this nut. "If you could tell me where to find the inmate named Jennifer and her friends," she said slowly and carefully to placate him. "I'd be eternally grateful."

Number 2 laced his fingers together in deep thought, staring at her evenly. "Yes, I'm sure you would, Number 8. Well, I suppose it's for the best. You need to check the lay of the land before you begin to move your pieces, don't you? Very well."

Without preamble, he handed her a golden-filigreed plaque with a white screen in the center of it. "Speak the name of whom you seek and the map will show you the way," he told her.

Nervously, Meg got up quickly and nodded respectfully. "Thank you, sir. I'll be back in a bit."

The so-called Mayor smiled grimly at her as the guests departed, slowly shaking their heads. "Indeed, and…have a nice day."

The two had already left.


	6. 6

"You want to tell me what _that_ was all about?" Meg asked while occasionally looking up from the magical GPS plaque in her hand to check her bearings.

Death, strolling behind, shrugged apologetically. "Did I mention he's loonier than a bank in Alberta?"

"No, you failed to mention that."

"Oh, yeah," Death added. "Don't mention the word _information_ around him. He gets a little uptight."

Meg looked back down at the map screen. "Thanks for the heads-up. I'll remember that the next time I tangle with _Dr. No_ back there."

For several minutes, the two of them walked the neighborhoods of Limbo, sometimes admiring the scenic beauty of the endless suburban sprawl, and at other times, simply bored with it.

Finally, they found themselves in the lane of a wooded cul-de-sac. Meg checked the map plaque. According to the golden circle surrounding one of the furthest houses in the street, this was where they were supposed to be.

"Well, this is it," Meg said a little nervously, as they approached the front door of their destination. She rang the doorbell and straightened her blouse.

The door opened and Meg was met by someone she thought she would have never seen again. There, still in the dark blue jogging suit she remembered from so long ago, this time adorned with a button marked 903, and still greeting the world with her ebullient eyes, stood Jennifer.

It was as if time stood still for the two of them. For Jennifer, it was a moment too impossible to be. _Meg had come._ She had finally come, and more to the fact was that she missed her so much.

Heart pounding and not caring for formalities, Jennifer squealed in joy, reached out and hugged Meg as tight as she dared. An action Meg herself was more than happy to reciprocate.

"Ugh," Death moaned, clearly uncomfortable with this emotional display. "Can we at least get inside with that? I got a reputation to keep."

"Oh, you're right," Jennifer agreed, finding her composure and leading them both inside the house. "Where are my manners? You both must have come such a long way. Please sit down and I'll get you some refreshments."

Death leaned over to Meg and whispered to her, "Will we need a food taster?" He got an elbow in his side for that remark.

"Thank you, Jennifer," Meg said graciously as they sat down in the living room.

"I'll be right back."

As Jennifer skipped into the kitchen, Meg and Death took the time to rest and study the home, which was small yet well furnished for its size, with cute knick-knacks and photos of her friends in the cult.

One photo in particular dominated the row of other pictures on the mantle in size and placing, and when Meg saw it, she almost teared up.

Framed in gold was a large photograph of Meg and Jennifer taken during a stopover at the town mall in the middle of their short, whirlwind time together.

It was like a time machine to Meg. The friendship, the sisterly bond. It was all there. It was such a bright time in her young life then. All she needed to complete that sought after sense of normalcy was a good friend and Jennifer was heaven-sent.

The picture wasn't glossy or artistically shot, but it didn't need to be. It just needed to be a chronicle, a moment in time when she was just… _happy._

Meg closed her eyes and let the ache of memories wash through her like the heat from a stiff drink of whiskey. It seemed as though she was a fighting a losing battle with the powers-that-be over her share of happiness in the world, and lately, the battle must have intensified.

A tear finally formed and rolled down her smooth, round cheek, and for a moment, she didn't know why it came. Was it for happiness, or was it for pain?

Meg noticed Jennifer returning with a pitcher of fruit juice, stackable cups and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. She wiped away the errant tear and brightened up again as she and Death accepted the fare and settled in to eat.

It was starting to become too quiet in the room so Meg opened up with conversation.

"Look at you," she said, forgetting the fact that Jennifer was now a spirit. "You haven't aged a day."

"Smooth," Death said under his breath.

If Jennifer noticed the faux pas, she didn't let it faze her disposition. Sitting up in her chair engagingly, she replied, "Well, it's pretty easy up here. But you! Look at you! You're growing into such a beautiful woman. I have to say I'm so jealous of you."

' _I'm growing into such a_ jaded _woman,'_ Meg thought sourly. And jealous? What did Jennifer see in her that was so envied?

"Please, don't be," Meg said with a sudden note of weariness. "You don't have to worry about parents who treat you like trash, or kids at school taking their frustration out on you by making you their whipping girl. If anything, I envy _you_." Then, as a quiet addendum, she said, "I wish we could trade places, sometimes."

Meg kicked herself when she noticed how her comments took the air right out of the room. "I'm…I'm sorry. It's just…me seeing you again after so long, it's bringing up these memories. Like, life can really kick you in the teeth, you know?"

"Oh, Meg," Jennifer commiserated. "That was why I joined the Heaven's Helpers. I felt the same way you do now and I thought the cult would free me from those feelings. Teach me how to cope. I was wrong, and in the end, it was too late for me."

She reached across the table and held Meg's hands to bring home the next thing she would say.

"Don't _ever_ wish to switch places, Meg.

What happened, happened, and right now, you can do the most good here, being who _you_ are. I never lost faith in that, and I know you can help us because that's who you are, the nicest girl I ever knew."

Meg felt like such a fool right then. Her occasional lapse into an angst-ridden funk was a weakness that she knew, and that shamed her deeply. Why was it so easy to doubt herself, when her good friend, her _best_ friend, was right there, giving her that support she so desperately needed at this juncture of her mission.

Meg squeezed Jennifer's hands back and lifted her head to see her face-to-face, determined to prove her friend's faith in her.

"You're right. Thank you, Jennifer. Best friends," she said softly.

To which Jennifer, remembering what they said to each other so long ago, responded back, in kind, "Friends forever."

Feeling much better than before, Meg then went into her attaché and took out some relevant stationary. "Okay, let's see how we can do this."

* * *

 

Number 2 stood by a seesaw monitor in his office, but was having trouble seeing it clearly because of its rocking motion.

"Can you-can you hold that-can you hold that steady?" he ranted. "I'm trying to-Look, damn it, I can't see what's going on if this piece of shit won't hold still!"

Behind him, Meg came through the door with purpose as she marched up to him.

"Ah, Number 8!" he said genially as he quickly went back to his seat behind his desk. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

Meg and Death continued to walk until they reached his desk. Death sat in one of the facing egg chairs, but Meg stood before the desk instead.

"Number 2, I've finished my interviews with the cult kids that live in the cul-de-sac and I'm ready to leave now," Meg said to him. "I believe that everything is in order?"

"Oh-oh, yes, of course, Number 8," the warden spoke with begrudging regard to her. "You will be pleased to know that all of your paperwork bore my scrutiny and was most acceptable. I must tell you that it is only my respect for you as an opponent that allows me to speak with vast deference to you."

Meg thought she misheard him just then. "Vas deferens?" she said to herself. "What a nutty thing to say." She then spoke back to the warden. "Uh, anyway, thank you, uh, Number 2. I'll be going now. I have an appointment to keep with Mr. Ragg in the morning."

Number 2 perked up at once. "Ragg, did you say? You wouldn't perchance mean one Zachary Phineas Ragg of the Massachusetts Ragg fortune, would you?"

Meg was a bit taken aback by that. How could anyone from Limbo, of all places, know anything about him?

"Yeah, I think so. How do you know about him?"

Number 2 stroked his beard softly in mad thought and misplaced admiration.

"Ah, as you can see, you're not the only one with access to… _information_ , Number 8. You see, I knew that you weren't so forthcoming when you said that you weren't in the intelligence game."

"Apparently, neither are you. I told you I'm not a secret agent with hidden information."

" _Information!"_ he suddenly called out, clearly liking the word and completely out of his tree.

Meg just sighed and tried to get through to him regardless. "Yeah, look, what do you know about Mr. Ragg?"

Number 2 leaned back in his egg chair, looking as though he was about to drive the final nail in his imagined rival's coffin.

With a self-satisfied smile, he said with a chuckle, "Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Know all of my secrets and win the game? The only game worth playing? The game of cat and mouse playing chess on a tightrope over a minefield with a blindfold on while playing Russian Roulette to see who'll start first in a game of Risk? Hmmm?"

"Tell me what you know about Ragg," Meg said evenly. "Or I'll make you watch Disaster Movie, _the Director's cut._ "

The man stared hard at Meg, judging to see if she would follow through with so dangerous a threat.

Meg didn't even bat an eyelash. "With commentary."

Number 2 shivered. "Well played," he finally commended softly. "It seems an inmate of mine had prior dealings with the illustrious Mr. Ragg before her arrival here."

"An inmate? Who is she?"

"A mysterious but otherwise model prisoner who was known to talk about the man at some length. It was reported that at times, it was all she ever talked about to anyone who listened," he explained.

This piqued her curiosity. She picked up her attaché, preparing to go to this new lead, and asked Number 2, "Can you arrange an interview with her? Anything she can tell me could really help me in this job I'm going to."

"I'll see what I can do, Number 8. Seeing as how you bested me in my own game, it's the least I can do for she-who-vanquished-me-by-cunningly-turning-my-move s-against-me-like-a-cat-in-season-toying-with-her- prey-while-the-mice-are-happily-away-not-knowing-w hen-the-day will-come-when-the-bounced-check-will-be-returned- due-to-insufficient-funds."

Meg stood stunned at that raw display of befuddled silliness and couldn't leave to talk to this mystery inmate unless she asked him one last question.

"Are you related to a man named Adam West?"

* * *

 

Because of its longer distance, Death had to drive them there this time. He stayed in the car with the engine idling while he talked to Meg, who was on her way to the door of the prisoner's house.

"I have to take off for a while," he said, while holding up his cell phone to her. "Just got a call of another earthquake. Six on the Richter, tops. When you're ready to go, just call me on your cell and I'll pick you up."

"Okay, I'll see you later."

She knocked on the door as she heard the loud putt-putt of the VW's engine fade in the distance. She had a pretty good feeling about this. An unexpected source of information concerning her boss, so soon, meant that this could make her new job with him all the easier for her. She wondered who she was.

Meg raised her hand to knock again, when the door finally opened. From the dim of the foyer, a feminine face leaned into view.

"I got the call from The Mayor to expect you," she said. "Come in."

Meg followed the woman into the house and closed the door. The interior, she was quick to notice, was markedly different from Jennifer's or the other kids'.

It looked like a cross between a museum and a stylishly decorated apartment. The facsimiles of trinkets and larger pieces of art were displayed in glass cases. The odd painting or two, also copies, had their places of honor on the walls.

"You like? I can't keep the originals, of course, but it's nice to know that I have a way of showing off my work. A kind of resume, if you like."

The look of the owner of the home was just as attention getting as her décor. She sat down on a plush sofa nearby and offered Meg a seat across from her.

The prisoner was attractive; a black woman in her mid-20's with loose, curly hair framing a girlish and mischievous face. However, what struck Meg the most was what the woman wore, a shiny, black catsuit whose highlights set off every curve on her body like a fireworks show and a pair of yellow-tinted goggles that crowned her head when not in use.

Obviously, these were the clothes that she wore in life, or rather, the clothes she wore at the very _end_ of her life, but Meg also noticed something odder still about her attire. She couldn't find the button that showed off her number. Everyone else had one, why didn't she?

"Now," the woman said amicably while lounging on the sofa. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, Number 2 said that you had some information on Mr. Ragg. I have to see him tomorrow and I'd like to know as much as I can about him since I'm going to be working in his company soon," Meg said.

The woman's eyebrow rose knowingly. "Planning on brown nosing the boss, huh? Well, it's a good start, but I never gave anything for free. If you want to know something about Ol' Ragamuffin, it'll cost you."

Meg thought very little on the subject of cost. Any chance to win favor with a new boss by anticipating his every professional need by way of foreknowledge was a welcomed opportunity.

"Sure, okay. It's a deal," Meg said eagerly.

"Okay. You want to work for Ragg? Well, know this. _I_ used to work for him, until he gave me one hell of a severance pay. A nine millimeter bonus, if you get my meaning."

Meg had to stop fantasizing about literary fame to digest what she had just heard. "He… _shot_ you?"

The woman nodded. "I was a professional thief and treasure hunter. Anyway, that guy is a world-class asshole, and thanks to me, he's got his hands on an ancient, evil artifact that'll probably give him world power."

This was bewildering for Meg. Where was all of this coming from? A CEO who murders and has some sort of object that gives him magical powers? She was beginning to question this woman's sanity, as well, but figured that while she was here, she'd hear the prisoner out.

"Well, what kind of artifact is it?" Meg asked her. "Do you know what it's called?"

"The Soulflame," she said simply. "Some spiritual weapon from Sumeria, I think."

"What does it look like?" Meg pressed, noticing that for some reason she was becoming a little more curious.

"Uh, like some big flame carved out of amber stuck on top of a gray, marble ball with some writing all around it. Anyway, it was in a museum in the Middle East. He must have heard about it on a trip there, or something. Paid me a ton of money to lift it, but according to him, it needs _souls_ in order to power the thing."

" _Souls?"_

"Yeah. See, apparently he made a deal with the Devil in exchange for these souls, but the Devil has to wait until these particular souls have been judged guilty of mortal sin, and then claimed by him. Then he can send them to the CEO, as per their agreement."

The expressions on Meg's face were chameleonic. First skeptical, then curious, then skeptical again, and now, with understanding dawning across her visage, worryingly terrified.

"Jennifer and the others," Meg whispered to herself. She then turned attention back to the woman. "Why are they so important to him?"

The woman paused, perplexed. "You know these souls _personally_? They're your friends?"

"Yes, that's why I came here. Why are they so important to him?"

"Because they're so powerful," the woman explained. "And the reason _why_ these particular souls are so powerful is because they were the souls of innocents who were tricked into forfeiting their young lives. Lives that were full of promise, y'know? The fact that your friends understand this now, makes it all the more tragic, and to the Devil, more satisfying, demonstrating, to him at least, that God had abandoned them when they were at their most confused and desperate."

"Well, now I _really_ have to do something," Meg ruminated. "They're going to be tried for killing themselves pretty soon, and I'm their defender. I'm gonna have to convince the jury that it was all an accident, somehow. I'm just glad that their paperwork was lost back then, and they had to spend time _here_."

"Well, I might have had a hand in that," the woman said sheepishly. "See, the reason they weren't processed right away was because the Devil found out about their Mortality Report. It's a document detailing how you died. Ragg arranged to have my soul temporarily leave my body so that I could go to Heaven and steal it, so the souls would have to be sent here to Limbo instead, until a court day could be set to render a final judgment for all of them."

Meg looked incredulously at her. "They had you steal it? They had _you_ steal it? Why couldn't the Devil just do it himself?"

The woman shrugged. "Because holy documents hurt Old Scratch. With the report gone, it's riskier for your friends now, because instead of having a prompt evaluation based on the information on the report, they now have to be judged as if in an earthly court of law with limited access to evidence available, and the possibility of wrongful prosecution, which could lead to innocent souls going to Hell by mistake, which is what the Devil is counting on with these particular souls. He and 'Ol Dish Ragg seem pretty confident that no one'll be able to successfully clear 'em."

The depth in which this was taking Meg was breathtaking. She had no idea what was going on until right now. She had no clue as to the kind of players and the kind of stakes she was engaging in. One major mistake, or even a minor one at a critical juncture, could unravel everything she was now trying to work for. But Jennifer's soul was at stake, and now that she knew why, Meg couldn't stop now, no matter who stood to gain from her failure.

"They haven't seen me in action, yet," Meg said with a little steel in her voice.

The woman could see that Meg wasn't going to be deterred by what she just told her, but she continued anyway. The girl needed to know what she was getting into.

"Look, the Devil set this deal up with the CEO years in advance," she said while counting off the various points of the deal on her fingers. "Ragg selling his soul for earthly power and having me temporarily die so my spirit could sneak around in Heaven to steal the cult's paperwork so that they couldn't be processed right then and there. Then they killed me _for good_ ,and simply waited until the time for the souls was up and they had to be tried, hopefully without representation, so the souls will lose the case and become the Devil's property, and he can give them to Ragg to power that artifact that will give him earthly control. They're playing for keeps here."

"It doesn't matter, ma'am. They have to be stopped somehow. I can't let this happen."

Despite the nature of the conversation, the woman could help but smile at Meg's use of _ma'am_ , and the pluck she exhibited.

"You don't have to call me ma'am, you know. I'm not _that_ old," she chuckled. "Anyway, if you're serious about this, a good way to put a banana in their tailpipe would be to get your hands on that Mortality Report."

Meg brightened at the strategy and jumped to her feet. "Yeah! It would prove that it was stolen, but more importantly, it could get the case thrown out because the report would show that their deaths were truly accidental."

The woman stood up casually, as well, and stretched, the clingy fabric of her suit sighing as it conformed to her body. "Possibly. But if you really want to shit on their parade, try to get that Soulflame and destroy it, pronto. Without it, Ol' Ragamuffin can't become the next ruler of the world. Okay, dear, I upheld my end of the bargain. Quid pro quo, as they say, counselor."

Meg thought again about the cost of this information. She didn't have much money at the moment, but maybe if she worked during summer vacation, she could scrape together something that might satisfy the prisoner. Meg hoped that the woman was flexible.

"Okay, you _did_ give me what I needed," she said diplomatically. "I don't have much money, but what would you like in return?"

The woman moved with a practiced grace and speed, closing the distance between Meg and herself in a heartbeat, like a predator.

With one arm snaked around the girl's waist and the other hand stroking the girl's warm, blushing cheek, the woman pressed firmly against Meg's body. Inside, Meg's heart was hammering.

"What _I_ need... _Sweetheart_ ," the woman purred close to Meg's face, smiling eagerly.

"Huh?" Meg gulped, suddenly hoping that _she_ was just as flexible.


	7. 7

The speakers of the old VW's radio buzzed an anonymous Classic Rock tune as Death waited outside the house of the prisoner Meg last talked to.

He hit the car horn, beeping for a few insistent seconds while he tapped his bony foot to Led Zeppelin.

"Hey, Meg!" he called out from the car. "C'mon! Get the lead out, will ya? You wanna me to take ya home or not?"

It was quiet in the bedroom. The clock ticked away and the woman softly snored, contentedly, under the rumpled sheets.

Beside her, sitting up and quiet, also, was Meg. Her reddish toque was on the floor, her glasses were askew, and her hair was a tousled mess. She breathed evenly as she stared ahead in guilty shock of what transpired hours earlier.

She wondered if that was what it would have been like had she allowed Sarah, a lesbian classmate of hers, to have sex with her. Well, Sarah or no, she slept, with great reluctance, with the prisoner, even if, technically, sleep hadn't occurred then.

While Meg chanted the mantra in her head that she "wasn't a lesbian" and that she "did it for Jennifer", the woman stirred slowly in bed and turned around to face Meg. The girl just continued to stare ahead uncomfortably.

Her discomfort, however, jumped another three notches when Meg felt the woman wrap her arm around hers and give it an affectionate squeeze.

"Mmmm. Morning, baby," the woman said sleepily as she pulled herself closer to Meg and snuggled against her. "Would you like to have breakfast in bed, or do you just want to cuddle?"

For an incredulous reply, Meg simply muttered a stunned, "Huh?"

Death turned off his car radio and was about to get out of the car to knock on the door, when the door finally opened slowly.

Meg left the house, staring out as blankly as a zombie, and Death thought that her clothes looked a little loose on her for some reason, as she stumbled guiltily into the morning light.

As she shambled mutely in front of the car, this time to get in the back seat, Death asked, "What happened? How come you took so long to call? I thought you were getting some info on that Ragg guy."

"Can we just go, please," Meg asked in weary shame.

The stricken look on her face made it clear to him not to press the issue.

"Okay. Okay, just wondering, that's all," Death said as he put the VW in gear.

As the car began to pull out of the curb, Death noticed movement in the doorway of the house. The woman, wearing nothing more than a sleeping robe, a monitor anklet, and a smile, stood in the threshold, sporting a glow that rivaled the sunrise.

As a force of habit, Meg self-consciously glanced her way and saw that this time she actually displayed a numbered button on her clothes. When Meg saw that the number was _69_ , she quickly hid her face.

Number 69 waved at Meg and smiled coyly. Then she brought up a hand and mimed a telephone receiver while mouthing the words, "Call me." Then, she slinked sexily back into the house.

A few moments into the silent drive, Death couldn't figure out the scene that played out in the woman's doorway. Why did she wave at Meg in a robe? Why were Meg's clothes so disheveled? And why did Meg stay all night in her house just to get some information she could have easily gotten much sooner?

The answer that came from his watching Meg squirm from his rearview mirror was both humorously and deliciously ribald.

"Oh, I get it," he said amusedly. "You were just _handling_ the situation, huh?"

The look Meg gave back to him through the rear view was satisfyingly morose. "What? Nothing happened!" she lied brusquely.

" _Pumping_ her for info, were we?"

"Ugh! Will you just shut up and drive? Look, she wouldn't give me anything unless I did something for her, okay?" she finally confessed.

"Hey, I understand," he said. "You girls have to _stick together_."

Meg ignored the off-color jibe and sighed despondently. "I don't want to talk about it. I just want to go home and forget about the whole night."

"Well, don't you worry, Meg," Death consoled her. "Your secret's safe with me."

"Thank you."

Death turned a corner and drove off into the morning, humming to himself as Meg sat still and fretted.

"The fundamental things apply," he sung to himself, then loud enough for Meg to hear. "As time goes… _bi_."

"Will you shut up?" she yelled as she grew a little redder and sank a little deeper in her seat.

* * *

 

The building that housed the offices of the Ragg Publishing Company was an architectural beacon of commerce. A tall, imposing tower of aged brick and concrete, it was created in the 1920's to illustrate to the unwashed and soon-to-be unemployed masses of the 1930's that Corporate America would and _could_ get by just fine without the presence of those who worked for it, if not those who ran it.

Nowadays, the building had gotten with the times. The façade had sported more glass now, and satellite dishes crowned its distant roof. Its surroundings also had changed. Gone were the cigar shops, bars and haberdasheries that stood across the street and catered to the affluent clientele who worked in the building. Today, the lobby windows reflected the rich foliage of a park that the employees would eat and relax in.

Inside, the interior was in stark contrast to the building's surviving ivy and old money exterior. Here, the décor was blasted into the late Twentieth Century with an explosion of green Italian marble, strategically placed plants, feng shui planning, and computerized directory assistance.

Meg only marginally noticed any of that as she followed the executive assigned to give her the ten-cent tour of the offices that ran the operations of Pro-Teen Magazine.

She was thinking more about what Number 69 had told her concerning Mr. Ragg, when she wasn't trying to think about what she did to acquire that knowledge.

Ragg, she reasoned, could be a serious threat to her if she didn't play everything close to the breast. And what about his silent partner in crime? What could she possibly hope to do against the Lord of Darkness himself? How could she, a neophyte lawyer, hope to best the very king of them?

Meg put it out of her mind for the time being. Better to focus on other things. So she focused on the exec that lead her from the editors' offices and down a corridor to a small chamber that was dominated by a central security kiosk, a door on either side of the room, and an elevator.

The exec had been talking to Meg in a very strange, halting manner on their way there, like he was trying desperately not to cough. Coupled with the way the man briskly walked, as though he were trying to crush a walnut between his gluteus muscles, Meg realized right off the bat that the man needed to go to the bathroom urgently.

"Okay, Meg," he struggled as they reached the kiosk and he began fidgeting in place. "All letters…are _emailed_ to the _company_ , which screens _them…_ prior to sending them off _to you_. You get ten a…month, sent to your home via your computer's _email_ account. _You_ …answer them; we screen _and_ post them in the _next_ month's issue. _Do you_ understand? Please say _yes!_ "

"Yes, I understand," Meg said, wondering why the man just didn't relieve himself first, and _then_ continue with the tour.

" _Thank you!_ "he gasped as he bolted to one of the doors to the side marked, "Men's.""

Meg leaned against the side of the curved kiosk to wait, sparing a glance at the old security guard inside that sat placidly under the stylish fluorescent lights.

"Did you know I once married cream cheese?" he said to her out of the blue.

"What?" Meg asked, startled.

"Huh?"

Meg sighed at the obviously senile man. "Whatever."

The guard must have liked the company, because he leaned over to Meg, attempting to check her out with his good, non-glaucoma eye.

"So, you're the new girl working here, eh?"

"Yeah, I guess so," she said. "It's my first time here."

The guard smiled happily, a wistful expression growing on his lined face. "Yeah, I remember my first time back in '32. English girl. She used to call the Nazis, "Jerries."" He then paused and said in a sad non-sequitor, "I miss Jerry Lewis."

Meg started to wonder how she become a magnet for crazies of late. "Uh-huh," she said flatly.

"Anyway, don't forget to take a look at the old haunted spotlight when ya get a chance, little missy," the guard told her without missing a beat. "A prime attraction around here, y'know."

"What spotlight?" Meg asked, a little intrigued.

The old guard pointed at the ceiling by way of illustration. "The old spotlight on the roof of the building. Old man Ragg put it up there in '48."

"To help planes navigate when they fly over the city?" she asked.

"Naw. To keep the aliens from landing on the building. Ragg hated those aliens. I do, too. Always up to no good with their Universal Brotherhood and all."

Meg gave the old man a deeply condescending look after that. She started to learn that if she were going to listen to anything he was going to say, for lack of anything better to do, she would have to take it with a ton of salt.

"Okay...So it's a haunted spotlight, you say?" she said. "How come?"

The guard pursed his dry lips together and thought. "Well, around '55 or '56, lightning struck that old spotlight. Electricians come and go, but they never could get that blasted thing fixed, so they disconnected it from the building's power. But nowadays, people leaving to go home sometimes look up and see a kind of glow coming from the roof."

"Have you seen it?"

"Yes, ma'am, I've seen it." he said, straightening his posture and then looking wistfully away. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…"

There was a most awkward silence following that, but before Meg could respond to it, the Men's bathroom door opened and a much-relieved executive strolled out to greet her.

"Whew! Sorry to keep you waiting like that. Drink a 2 liter bottle of Sprite by yourself and you live to regret it," he said as he pressed the up button for the elevator. "Anyway, moving on…"

Meg stepped in after the man entered the car, and then the door closed on the guard and his station.

As the car ascended, the guard sat still for a moment or two while the ambient sounds of business continued to float around him. Then without preamble, he lifted his hoary head and yelled to no one in particular, "Wake up, Maggie! I think I've got something to say to you!"

Despite how nice the CEO's office was, Meg reminded herself, he was still the enemy.

The tour ended with her sitting in a plush, leather chair in front of Mr. Ragg's aircraft carrier-sized Mahogany desk while she innocently looked around at the various odds and ends that made up the office life of Z.P. Ragg.

Two rapiers hung on the far wall, crossed in display. Small shelves of dark wood held trophies and business plaques, but some also showed off figurines and object d'art. Art Deco light fixtures shared space with degrees and diplomas from business universities and college.

Closer to Ragg were the objects that he placed on his desk and on the low shelving behind him. Things like pictures of relatives and friends in photo cubes and metallic frames, Sharper Image Catalogue stationary, and his flat-screen computer monitor.

There were hanging folders on racks, and in and outbox trays here and there, and the whole of the office, which was immense, was framed with a brace of windows that almost surrounded the room and gave Meg a vista of Downtown Quahog she had never seen before.

But she couldn't find what she was dead-set on looking for, the Mortality Report, whatever _it_ looked like, and the Soulflame. In fact, she was probably risking getting fired by closing her mind off to Ragg's own two-cent speech on how happy he was that she was working here, and how thrilled she would be doing this assignment.

"Meg?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm not boring you, I hope."

"Huh?" Meg said as she recovered from her thoughts and focused on him once again. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Ragg. I had my head in the clouds for a minute."

"That's okay," he said. "I was asking if you had any questions that you wanted to ask me."

Honestly, Meg didn't really. The exec who gave her the tour had already given her the nuts and bolts on what her job would entail. But she quickly came up with a way to use this Q&A to her information gathering advantage.

Giving the man her best coy look, Meg asked Ragg, "Well, I seemed to have everything I need job-wise, but I just love the knick-knacks in your office. Where did you get them?"

Ragg straightened proudly. "You like them, do you?"

"Oh, yeah. See, I'm planning on being an art major and study sculpture when I go to college, and I just think your taste in art so _cool_."

Ragg chuckled self-consciously, "Well, thank you, Meg. Well, to answer your question, I gathered them from all over the world, really. Had a friend come by sometimes to give me some trinkets from here and there."

Meg felt a pang of remorse for the slain Number 69 just then. He didn't seem the least bit upset in the disposing of her when her services were concluded. She reminded herself not to think too unkindly of her when this was over.

Meg put on her best phony smile. It was time to put the pressure on, so to speak. "Really? That's so cool, Mr. Ragg. Tell me, did your friend ever get any stuff from Egypt or the Middle East? They say you can get the coolest stuff from there."

When Ragg didn't catch on to her questioning, Meg cheered inwardly. He said breezily, "I agree. There's something I find… _spiritual_ …in art like that. Actually, I do have more pieces from that part of the world in a private collection at home."

' _Yes,'_ she thought gleefully.

"Really?" Meg poured it on as she scratched her head in a semblance of nervousness. "I know it sounds like a lot to ask, Mr. Ragg, but I was kinda wondering if I could ever get a chance to check out your collection sometime? I mean, I know that you're really busy, so, y'know, it doesn't have to be _now_ , or anything."

Ragg looked at Meg as though it was his first time. He had had his reservations about her at first, but with this revelation, he began to consider that maybe he might have been wrong about her.

He thought for a second and then told her, "Well, you're right. I _will_ be pretty busy for a few days, but I'd still love to show my art. Tell you what, Meg. I'll set something up this weekend. A private tour of my whole collection. How's that sound?"

Inwardly, Meg was troubled. Time was of the essence and she couldn't possibly wait until the weekend to see if it was there or not. Chances were that it probably _was_ at his home. Taking a page from the illustrious Number 2, she was going to have to get to it very soon. By hook or by crook.

Outwardly, Meg smiled as she accepted the offer graciously.

"That would be great, Mr. Ragg,"

* * *

 

It was well after sundown when the limo pulled out of the executive parking lot. It eased into the somewhat tame downtown traffic, never noticing the parked red station wagon that waited a short distance down the street.

Meg merged smoothly into the limo's lane and cruised sedately, about four car lengths behind. She'd come up with an excuse for not coming home at a decent hour later, but right now, any chance to learn where Ragg lived rested on her successful tailing of him this early evening.

She turned on the radio to ease her nerves. She had never done this before and the thrill had clearly caught her. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to follow quite possibly the only limousine on the streets tonight, so she kept her safe distance with no trouble.

Meg thought about what she'd have to do were she able to get a chance to get inside the house. The temptation to back out was understandable, if not logical. She ran afoul of the law far too often for her liking, and she didn't need a B and E charge for her troubles.

She reasoned that when the opportunity presented itself, she would slip in, hopefully, through an unlocked window, or maybe she could wait outside for Ragg, his chauffeur, or maybe another servant, to open the door and exit the house, where upon she could, again, slip in, this time to hide in a closet or basement until they all fell asleep. Then she'd prowl the interior.

As the limo flew across the expressway, it followed the silvery ribbon of streetlights that lead it out of the city proper and into the distant and moneyed suburbs. Meg stayed dutifully with it and kept her mind occupied with scenarios on how to break into a mansion that, quite frankly, probably had state-of-the-art security even in its _mailbox_.

In truth, she knew that there was probably no way to get in without being discovered, but she resigned herself to the knowledge that whatever obstacle impeded her, she would have to find a way around it. In the long run, with what she knew, she didn't have much choice.

Meg noticed that the setting was different when they exited the expressway. Tree-line boulevards were becoming the norm here, and specialty shops and mini-malls that served the local populace dotted the scenery.

She trailed her target to a dark path that turned away from the wider street they cruised. A worry hit her just then. What if the driver of the limo had been occasionally seeing her from his rear view mirror? The traffic in this part of town was very light, and if he bothered to notice her since _downtown_ , her cover was as good as blown.

Hoping that there was nothing in front of her but empty space and her quarry, and throwing everything she knew about driver safety out the window, Meg turned off her headlights, dropped her speed to widen the distance more, and focused intently on the rear lights of the limousine up ahead on the dark, curving road.

After about twenty minutes of driving through quieter private roads and small residential streets, Meg could see the limo's rear turn signal flash in the direction of a smooth, paved driveway. She pulled over to the side of the road that offered her the most concealment in the darkness, and cut her engine.

She got out of the car and walked ahead of it. When she reached the front of the car, she turned to see a veritable menagerie of road kill stuck to the grill.

Meg reached down and gingerly pulled free a rabbit, a cat, a duck, and, impossibly, a Face Hugger and a horse. Once done with the grisly chore, she quietly ran up the road to where the black car entered and hid near a large shrub that bordered the property from the wilder flora outside.

Meg could see the limo parked on the curving driveway in front of a huge, well-lit mansion overlooking a green sea of manicured lawn. Up ahead was a decorative mailbox with a sloping series of filigreed numbers on its side.

Meg reached behind her and produced a pad and pencil, jotting down the house number and, after remembering what the name of this particular road was, the rest of the address. Soon afterwards, she snuck back to the car, quietly pulled out of the dark of the road, made a u-turn, and drove discreetly away.

On the way home, Meg smiled in dark triumph at her cleverness. She had an address and she had _something_ of a game plan. But she couldn't execute that game plan just yet, because, as she looked at the car radio's clock, Meg realized that, come the next day, she finally had to go to court.


	8. 8

The interior was authentic. Large, austere, and everything that needed to be wooden was richly so, from the jury box, audience seating and lawyers' benches, to the witness stand and the imposing judge's bench. However, there were touches that stood out in the overall scheme.

Gleaming in snow-white marble and accentuated with gold of an unearthly quality, four columns, one on either end of the courtroom, gave off an illumination that was soft, yet bright enough to work with comfortably. A low layer of clouds flowed from the bases of these structures, playing along the surface of the floor without obstructing it completely.

Not only did these pillars provide the expansive, sourceless light for the place, since there were no other light fixtures to be seen anywhere, but they also let everyone within, spectator and participant, know that although this facility was terrestrial in appearance, it was a clearly celestial in nature.

And the place was packed.

The audience chatted amongst themselves in expectation of the event, and outside the courtroom, Meg could hear that buzz of anticipation, and had a keen idea of what Roman gladiators must have felt like before they entered the arena.

Keeping that in mind, Meg straightened the armor of her pantsuit, checked to see that her weapon, her briefs, were safely in the shield that was her attaché. Made a silent prayer to God to do well, took a deep, nervous breath, and entered the arena of the courtroom.

Walking down the aisle, it felt as if she were walking into a movie theater, audience seating full and expectations high, except that _she_ was a major part of the entertainment.

She was so focused in thought and preparation for the case that she barely heard two people calling her name.

Turning to the audience, Meg scanned around, still hearing her name. Then her sight fell on two people she thought she'd never see again.

"Grandpa! Mrs. Brown!" Meg said in happy recognition as she went over to them. "Wow, how are you?"

The overweight black woman took Meg's hand in greeting, saying, "Oh, we're both fine, child. How are you? How's Cleveland and Cleveland Jr.? Are they fine?"

"I'm fine, ma'am. We haven't heard much from Mr. Brown and his son, but I'd imagine that they're fine, too, Mrs. Brown." Meg then looked up ahead to see the still vacant judge's bench. "I better get going, I have to defend my client in a few minutes."

Loretta Brown thought she misheard. "What? You mean you're not here to see the trial?"

"Nope. I'm a lawyer now, Mrs. Brown. This my first case."

Francis Griffin, her grandfather, brightened up at the news. "Oh, good for you, lass. I had a feeling you'd make something of yourself, despite the fact that ya came from such a drunkard as your father. But why are ye _here_? Did that fat oaf fall on ya, too?"

Meg had to snicker at that. "No, Grandpa. See, I'm not really dead. My body's back home and I'm astral projecting 'cause it's the only way I can get here." Meg suddenly saw Francis' face grow stormy and she immediately wished she didn't explain that to him.

As proud as he was of Meg's accomplishments, the hearing of such an unfamiliar term brought out the stubborn, puritanical, close-mindedness in him.

"And do you know what's happening to your body right now, young lady?" he ranted. "Someone could be doing heathen things to it while you're here, flappin' your gums at us."

"Grandpa," Meg said, trying to placate him. "It's okay, my body's in bed right now."

"Yeah, the perfect place for some hooligan to take advantage of ya!" Francis countered hotly.

Meg didn't know what to do. The case was just about to start and here she was, getting embarrassed before she could ever fall on her face legally to do it herself.

She was about to try again when she saw Mrs. Brown jump in and say to him, "Oh, hush that noise, you old fool. You know your granddaughter would never do anything that would get her in trouble. If she said that this was the only way she could get here, then that should be good enough for you."

Meg thought she saw a miracle today. For once, Francis quieted down, albeit reluctantly, when told to.

"Thanks, Mrs. Brown," Meg said, almost bowing to her in gratitude.

"That's alright, child. You go ahead and win this case, 'cause your grandpa and I will be rooting for you."

Meg gathered her things again and wondered what on Earth, or Heaven, as the case may have been, did the woman have on Old Francis to make him heel.

As she turned to leave, Meg could see Francis' liver-spotted hand in Loretta Brown's, and with a knowing smile, Meg had found her answer.

Finally, Meg made it down to the defendant's bench. She settled in, going over the notes in her folders, looking, for all the world, like a veteran lawyer. Jennifer and two of her fellow cult members were sitting next to her, just as anxious as Meg. Just next to the three kids, a sullen looking cult leader sat silently. Shame etched in every line of his sad, pale face.

Meg gave one last calming glance at the audience benches, where she saw among the crowds, amazingly, some of The Paupers and Mr. Kingsfield. Much to her chagrin, yet also to her request, Number 69 sat, waving covertly at her and blowing her the odd kiss. Mortified, Meg hid her face and turned back the matter at hand.

Jennifer leaned over to Meg and whispered, "Good luck, Meg. No matter what happens, you did the right thing, and we'll always remember you for that."

Meg finished going over her briefs and gave Jennifer a nervous smile to answer her friend's confidence, a confidence Meg wasn't fully sure she felt in herself.

"Thanks," she said.

Her confidence then began to vacillate even more when she took a look across the room at her adversary, at last.

The Devil, himself, in one of his best black and red silk designer suits, clearly was in his element. He gave Meg a little wave and a smile that chilled her from within.

Meg, to her credit, went over to greet him.

"Well," he said with what sounded in her ears like a predatory purr. "I'm pleasantly surprised that someone actually came to try and defend these lambs for the slaughter, and I see that that someone is, impossibly, _you_ , Miss Griffin."

"Well, I guess nothing's really impossible if you work at it," Meg responded carefully, trying to gauge, in all honesty, what probably couldn't _be_ gauged in paltry human terms, his reactions. Although he was definitely here for the souls, she couldn't help but think that at any second, he could just as easily snatch her away, too.

"Well, they must care a great deal for you to risk so much. You know, of course, that if I win, they belong to me forever."

"Well, sir, the trial hasn't started yet," Meg said, heartened by the knowledge that she had to prevent that loss from happening, and therefore feeling a touch bolder in her wording. For a second, she harkened back to the painting of Daniel Webster. He was respectful to his opponent, but he knew what his opponent was about, in this case, psyching out the competition. He knew he had to do everything in his power to win. She knew that she could do no less.

"Well," the Devil said, also feeling her confidence rise. "Aren't we full of piss and vinegar. I hope that youthful exuberance of yours doesn't get you into too much trouble."

"Well," Meg shrugged nonchalantly. "I wouldn't worry about that. I have something on my side that'll help me if things go bad."

"Well," the Devil countered smoothly, knowing what she meant. "I wouldn't put too much stock into that _something_ you're talking about. I hear that it lets you down more often than not, and when you need it most." He gave a sly smile.

"Well, then, I guess I'm just gonna have to take my chances with it. Call it brand loyalty, if you will."

"Well," the Devil scoffed. "I'd call it stupid, but the name _Meg_ was already taken."

Meg bristled at that. She'd been called this and that for so long, that even now, when the Devil stooped to calling her names, she had forgotten who he was and just glared at him. It might have seemed to him as though a dachshund pup just yapped at a pit bull, but she didn't care.

"Look, dude, whatever," Meg told him squarely. "We can sit here and play the _'Well'_ game'til Doomsday, and personally, we all know how _that's_ gonna turn out for you." Now _she_ gave a triumphant smile. "But I have a case to win. My first one, in fact. So, let's just shake hands and come out swinging."

She reached out and held her hand out for him to shake. Cordially, he did so, and the sensation of nausea hit Meg like a tidal wave. Her knees buckled, but she still somehow stood.

"Something wrong, Miss Griffin?" he asked innocently.

"N-Nothing I can't…handle," Meg said weakly before releasing her grip and letting the sickly feeling leave her by increments.

"I'm not giving up," she managed to say, as she turned slowly, to avoid motion sickness, and tottered back to her side of the courtroom.

Although the whole exchange was pretty much comical and what he'd expect of it, the Devil had to smile curiously at the teen's pluck. He could feel the inner pain from her flow through him like an electrical charge when they shook hands, and he liked it, but he began to consider that that self same pain made her a fighter, a scrappy little piece of flesh that, impossibly, could wrench forth a miracle should he misstep. He would have to watch and see how she handled herself here.

"Well, well, well," he murmured with a smile.

Recovering, Meg stiffened and her heart banged in her ribs when she saw the judge finally enter the courtroom and sit imperiously upon his bench.

After the bailiff presented the judge and everyone settled in, the judge read the docket, then looked at Meg and her opponent.

"Before we start this trial," he told both of them. "Do the both of you have your briefs with you?"

The Devil and Meg both responded, "Yes, Your Honor."

The Devil took out a pair of underwear from his attaché case and said, "Joe Boxers."

Meg took out a pair from _her_ briefcase. "Bikini. French cut, Your Honor."

"Very well," the judge said, satisfied. "Counsel, please state your appearances."

"Lucifer Nicholas Morningstar Scratch for the prosecution," the Devil said proudly.

"Megan Griffin for the defense," she said, with equal pride.

"Are all of the parties present?" the judge asked the two, to which both answered in the affirmative.

"Are you ready to proceed?" he then asked them.

Again both answered in the affirmative.

"Prosecution, you may start opening statements," the judge concluded.

The Devil stood and smoothly delivered his first attack.

"Thank you, Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the court, let me tell you now that these kids were never brainwashed. They weren't coerced or bamboozled. Heck, they weren't even hoodwinked. They were all sane, and all acted on their own accord," he told the jury.

"The defense will _try_ to tell you that they only craved love like I crave coffee cake, _God, I love coffee cake_ , but I put it to you that they only craved attention. Attention they weren't getting enough of at home, at school, and elsewhere."

He gestured at the defendant's bench. "Here, we see the end result of their reckless youth, and when it became apparent to them that the world wouldn't bend over and call them Daddy, they sought to lash out, and do the only thing they felt would vindicate their so-called _troubled_ existence. They killed themselves."

He walked up to the jury box and leaned against its edge casually, looking into the eyes of its occupants as though he was their oldest, closest friend.

"It was just blind chance that these kids fell in with a man of questionable mental stability, who made their angst-ridden fantasies come true by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear."

"Aaron Spelling?" asked a woman from the audience.

"That the world didn't care about them," the Devil continued, holding his audience spellbound like a Southern Baptist preacher. "That their _parents_ didn't care about them. But nothing could have been further from the truth. If these children had the guts to tell their folks their troubles, and had the moral fiber and intestinal fortitude to stick to it when the going got tough, we wouldn't be here about to pass judgment on them, they wouldn't be here to be _subject_ to that judgment, and, yes, The Jonas Brothers would _not_ have had a record contract. These children would have been living good, productive lives on Earth, and maybe, _just maybe_ , someday they might have joined the ranks of you good and fine people here. Thank you."

He calmly walked back to his bench and sat back down as Meg walked up to the front of the room to begin her opening statement.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the question will not be whether Speed Racer was a horrible movie, but whether the children of this cult knowingly committed suicide that day. The answer is no. However, the minds of all these children are at the heart of this issue. The issue being that they were all under the influence of a mysterious man in white, and the issue being that brainwashing, ladies and gentlemen, is real, and when done correctly and efficiently, with a charismatic personality molding lost and troubled minds like clay, one can see the rise of Glen Beck, Michael Savage or Rush Limbaugh all over again.

"Now according to their leader, over there, they were supposed to go on a journey to a new world where their troubles would be over as they were transformed into beings of light and power." She gestured to the sad, old man that sat at the far end of the defendant's bench, as though exiled even from the other cult members.

"As you can see, it didn't work out so well. So, yes, it's true that their leader was about as nutty as a king-sized Snickers bar, he was a few songs short of a mix tape," she said to the jury, and then decided to go on a roll. "Okay, he's screwier than a Black&Decker drill, his script's missing a few pages, he's more unhinged than a door in Bob Villa's house, I mean he's like crazy _mad_ nutz!"

"Counselor," the judge warned.

Meg settled down. "Sorry, Your Honor. Anyway, had things gone according to plan, they would have all died by their own hand, myself included. But you have to understand, the kids only looked up to _him_ because no one else wanted to listen to them. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, _listen_ , and not talk. Not talk _down_ to them, not talk _at_ them. Just listen."

"Now, don't think I'm going to paint this guy as anything less than a predator and a madman, and don't think I'm not going to paint these kids here as anything less than dumb for falling in line with him. _However_ , and I can't stress this enough, these children did die _accidentally_."

"In conclusion, the charge of mortal sin caused by suicide is false, and these children will ultimately be proven innocent, not with _my_ help, but with _yours_. Thank you."

She then returned to her bench, satisfied with her performance, and secretly shaking like a leaf.

* * *

 

After a rousing battle of witness and cross-examination, the trial finally ended for the day, and when Meg left to return to Earth and everyone else departed the courtroom, the Devil stood in a marble corridor talking into his cell phone, a new version of the popularly hellish _Void_ brand.

"Do you have the profile I asked for earlier?" he asked to one of the countless functionaries in his dread domain.

"Yes, sir," came the voice on the other end. Then the profile and picture of Megan Griffin slid into view on the Void's small screen.

"So this is little Megan, hmm?" he said to himself as he casually scanned the data.

The minion, thinking that his master was speaking to him, answered, "Yes, sir. According to records, she's Peter Griffin's eldest daughter, of Irish-German descent-"

"Yes, yes, I see," he cut him off while he read more thoroughly on the subject. "Hmm… Potential for academic excellence. Planed on going to Brown University. Was an intern in City Hall and the city's local news station. Impressive at such a young age. _And_ wrote for the school newspaper. Clearly her German intelligence shines through."

Then he saw the lower section of the profile, all in very noticeable red type. "Ah, the flip side! Arrested three times, I see. Indecent exposure at a spring break. Attempted rape on a group of burglars. That was inspired," he chuckled.

"Aiding and abetting a fugitive from justice," he continued. "Heh, _my_ kind of girl. Peer pressure in school and physical and emotional abuse at home bring about instances of aberrant behavior and self-destructive rage. Ah, yes, definitely the Irish passion."

As people who saw him in the hallway gave him a wide berth, he wondered about Meg again. There was nothing to her, obviously. Just a mortal who somehow got in way over her head in this.

But there was also the opportunity for irony and corruption, and he could never pass up a chance for that, particularly if that made winning the case all the easier and sweeter.

"Such fury, such pain," he mused. "How to make it work for me, I wonder…"

So deep in thought was he on how to twist her to his way of thinking, that he almost didn't catch a stray concern float past him in his mind. When he snatched it, he realized that he made the right call in heeding it.

Meg was a mortal, yet she was defending the cult members' souls. Why? Because she had to have known what he and Ragg were up to. How? Because she was summoned by someone, _somehow_. Perhaps one of the souls themselves, someone close to her. And how did she even know how to astral project? She was getting help, and aggressively, she was knowing how to use it.

The more he thought about it, the more he started to think that this little slip of a girl might have more moxie in her than was previously figured. She just might be a definite threat to his plans after all.

He redialed his cell and called, then waited for the pick-up.

"Ragg Publishing Company. How may help you?" Ragg said on the other end.

"Ragg? It's me," the Devil said.

"Hey, how are you? What's up?"

"We might have a little problem."

"Talk to me."

"Do you still have that girl, Meg Griffin, working for you?" the Devil asked.

"Sure, why?"

"I want you to keep an eye on her. Keep tabs on her, if you can."

"Alright, if you say so." Then the CEO added, "Actually, she was supposed to come back here after her orientation the other day to pick up her approved list of the names of beauty products to mention in her letters. But why do you want me to watch her, anyway?"

"Because she was up here in Heaven today, acting as counsel to the souls _I_ was going to give to you."

" _What?"_

"That's right," the Devil told him. "Somehow our little four-eyed geek found out about our little deal, and managed to arrange it so that she would _defend_ the souls of those kids."

"I can't believe it," Ragg said, flustered. "She's really racking up those frequent flyer miles."

The Devil put his hand on his head to calm himself. "Focus, Ragg. Focus. I want you to call her. Find out where she is."

"Right, right. Okay, I'm calling now."

The Devil waited, and then got a call back a few moments later.

"I just called her cell phone and I got no answer," Ragg told him, sounding a little fearful.

"Drop what you're doing and hang up," the Devil commanded. "Check your house. She might be there."

"I'm gone," Ragg said, and then hung up, leaving the Devil to actually wonder if making a deal with Ragg was such a good idea. Then he remembered the back-up plan and realized that, in the end, he would come away the victor, no matter what Miss Griffin managed to do.

* * *

 

The red station wagon was parked off by the side of the road. Among the widely spaced townhouses and mansions that dotted the area, the car looked wholly out of place, yet, miraculously, it wasn't towed away.

And so it sat, undisturbed, as a body began to stir into consciousness in the trunk.

Planning ahead, Meg had come out of her astral projection and back into her body, here. She woke up and stretched the stiffness out of her joints. She knew she didn't have much time. Ragg was going to find out something was wrong when she didn't touch base with him.

Looking at her cell phone's recent list of messages confirmed that fact. He called while she was on her way back.

"Crap!" she muttered to herself as she got out of the rear and came around to enter the car from the driver's side. "I don't have much time."

She started the car and pulled out of its spot on the road, drove a few yards, and then entered the driveway of Ragg's property.

She breathed a sigh of fathomless relief when she didn't see his limo there. It looked as though Ragg wasn't planning any company, which could have made Meg's job a little easier, in the long run.

She got out and slowly went to the front door, rehearsing the half-baked story she cobbled together last night. She knocked crisply and waited. Meg raised her hand to knock again, when she heard the locks on the large door loosen.

The door opened and an elderly woman of Spanish descent wearing a professional housekeeper's uniform stood dully by the threshold, a feather duster in one yellow rubber gloved hand, a can of furniture polish in the other.

Meg wondered if she had seen her someplace before, then banished the thought as she gave the woman a tight smile and rattled off her lie.

"Hello, ma'am. My name is Meg Griffin. I work for your boss, Mr. Ragg. I'm his personal assistant. He left some paperwork at home this morning, and so he sent me to go get it for him. Could I just run in there and pick it up?"

The old housekeeper, Consuela, to her credit, slowly refused. "No. No," she said softly with age. "I no let you in. Mr. Ragg, he no call me to say you coming."

Meg maintained the charade even though this woman was a tough nut to crack and time was short.

"I know, I know. He was _going_ to call here, but he was so busy that he couldn't, so he had me rush straight over here."

She had hoped that that would have convinced her, but, again, with the steadiness of a tortoise, the old woman said, "No. No. I no let you in."

The clock in Meg's head counted down ominously and she simply didn't see any other alternative. She just begged. "Please? Please? I have to get in there, just for a few minutes, I swear. Please?"

"No. No. I no let you in. You go now. You go," Consuela droned in her monotonous Pidgin English. Apparently, she was quite adamant.

Meg reluctantly turned to go back to the car. She was not about to get into a pissing contest in the middle of the day with a housekeeper that clearly was going to bar her at every turn.

"Wait."

Meg stopped in shock. The housekeeper wanted her?

"Yes?" Meg asked, inside, overjoyed to somehow still be here. Maybe the old lady would invite her in on second thought.

"Do you have Lemon Pledge?" Consuela asked listlessly as she gently shook an empty can of the furniture polish.

Again, Meg was in shock, and not in a good way. "Uh, no."

"Okay." Then the heavy, oak door closed in Meg's face.

Meg just stood there, her mind blank. Not even the threat of Ragg's imminent arrival could stir her just then. She knew that she wasn't going to get in like she planned. It was just foolish, wishful thinking.

She went back to the car. If she was lucky, she could probably get back into town without running into her boss, and then make up a story as to why she didn't get in touch with Ragg that was, hopefully, better than her most recent one.

' _I can't believe that that…_ housekeeper _would have the nerve to ask for some blankety-blank Lemon Pledge,'_ she fumed. _'She could have just gone to that shop on the main street, back where the road opened up.'_

_The shops and the mini-mall that she past the night that she first tailed Ragg to his home…_

Meg stood rigid in thought, and then, when she was satisfied, gave a grin that would have warmed even the Grinch's evil heart.

She hopped into the car and tore off down the road as fast as she dared, hoping that what she wanted was there, and in sufficient quantity.

* * *

 

The unexpected snarl ran the length of three blocks, stopping traffic dead ahead of Ragg's limo.

The plumber's pick-up truck that was T-boned in the rear by the municipal bus, sat in a smoking, impotent heap at the head of the mess, its back half resting on the street, and errant pipes scattered from crosswalk to crosswalk.

Ragg couldn't believe his luck and cursed it bitterly. For all he knew, that troublemaking high-schooler was probably already rooting through his papers, plundering his hard drives, ransacking his study, and going through his liquor cabinet.

He was so tantalizingly close to the expressway. If only he could cross it now, he might just catch her by total surprise in the home, and then he would introduce her to his own home version of The Silence of the Lambs. If only he could keep _moving_.

"Caruthers," he asked pensively, fingers unconsciously kneading into the leather arm rests of the back seat. "Is there anyway to go around this?"

"I'm afraid not, sir," came the awful, expected reply. "There's been an accident up ahead, and it looks like our car is far too big to maneuver past the others."

"Damn it. I have to get home now!" Ragg raged petulantly. "You're my chauffeur. What can I do if you can't _take_ me anywhere?"

Caruthers muttered hotly under his breath, "You can take a flying leap off my pimply ass."

Ragg thought he heard something coming from the driver's side just then. "Did you say something, Caruthers?"

"No, sir," the chauffeur lied loudly. Then he heard the sound of a car door open, then close.

He rolled down his window and saw his employer quickly march away from the car and down the street, towards the front of the tangle of vehicles.

"Where are you going, sir?" Caruthers asked.

"Can't just sit here with my thumb up my ass!" said Ragg. "I have to _save_ it!"

He walked vigorously past complaining motorists and interviewing traffic reporters, idling cars and rubbernecking pedestrians, until he reached the front and could see the truck knocked to the side of the street by the wayward bus, which suffered a slightly mangled face, of sorts, upon impact.

Ragg's mind was racing, more with questions than answers. The arguing bus driver and the police on the scene were no help. Nor were the people coming out of the bus and the families in the cars just behind it.

He took a quick look at his watch for the time, but in honesty, he didn't need to. He could feel the precious minuets drain from him, as if he were in the truck by the side of the street and the wreck wounded _him_ bloodily.

That thought made him snap his head up in the direction of the pick-up. The driver, who had already told what he knew to the police, sat on the end of the way-to-low rear loading area, sulking and nursing a sore neck.

"Hey!" he called out in the direction of the bus driver and the police officers. "Do any of you guys know anything about whiplash?"

"Ask Indiana Jones," Ragg said in reply after getting into the driver's seat and turning the left-behind key in the ignition.

Amazingly, the truck shuddered to life and Ragg whipped it into gear like a professional driver. However, the rear, made low because the bus damaged its rear axel, dragged noisily along the surface of the tarmac, causing the vehicle to swerve crazily, fountain sparks into the air behind it, and trail rolling pipes everywhere.

A sight that was more and more appreciated by the original owner, since he, so startled by the carjacking, held on to the back door, and was now howling for dear life as he was dragged on his unlucky way towards the expressway.

* * *

 

Consuela moved as well as her elderly bones could manage in time to the drum rhythm of the salsa on the Spanish channel on the radio.

She was trying to dust to the beat, but found it hard to do with the residual drops of polish spurting feebly out of the can whenever she pressed the button up top to spray.

With a sigh, Consuela shook the can once more and heard its weak sound of something infinitesimal splashing against the metal environs. Not enough to work with at all.

She was about to stop dusting and move on to something else when she thought she heard something over the rhythm of the music, something like a tap, or knock.

She ignored it as her ears playing tricks on her, another of the creeping symptoms of her old age, when it sounded again, much louder.

Consuela turned down the radio and shuffled over the door. Perhaps it was her current employer. He sometimes did come home early, with a young woman from the secretarial pool on his arm.

She opened the door slowly, thoughts of her heavily disinfecting the sheets after their likely tryst, bobbing in her hazy mind. She was not prepared for what she saw.

On the brick-laid step just before the threshold sat a can of Lemon Pledge shining in the noonday sun.

Consuela didn't register. She just stared dumbly down at the can in disbelief, as if it were made of the purest gold. Then she slowly, almost reverently, reached down and picked it up.

Yet, when she was bent over, she happened to look out into the yard. No car of that annoying girl who came by earlier, but something else caught her attention, and nearly took her breath away by the sheer luck of the situation. Another can stood off to the side.

Consuela managed a breathless, "Si," before toddling quickly back into the house, and then coming back with a paper grocery bag.

She quickly picked up the other can and placed it in the bag, and then she saw another can, and another, and another. A procession of aerosols in a beautiful, tempting line. She felt her heart skip a beat. She picked up more cans.

Every time she bagged a can, she would drone the word, "Si." It was as close to ecstasy as she could emotionally convey, and had been saying that word for a close to a minute now, plucking cans like a harvest, from the walkway that led from there to the side of the house. If she were wearing a sunbonnet, the picture would have been perfect.

The can collection continued around to the side of the house, and now she was humming merrily to herself, as well as saying, "yes" in Spanish for every can taken. She was lost in thoughts of hours, days, even months of uninterrupted dusting pleasure, using can after glorious can of lemony goodness.

So deep was she in her fantasies of polishing, that she had no idea what was set to strike just up ahead, open and ready to enclose her in darkness.

A few feet away, a large cardboard box propped up by a thin stick, was waiting…

From her hiding spot by the shrub she hid near the other night, Meg saw the box do its quick work, then she ran pell-mell to the open front door.

She entered and closed the door. She momentarily marveled at the interior of the mansion. Apart from her grandparents' and great-great aunt's home, Meg hadn't been to many such places.

Then she went to work, moving from the foyer, to deeper into the house to look for the den or study. It would be the first, logical place to search, possibly on the first floor, and hopefully, she might just get lucky on the first try.

Meg entered the large dining room and scanned for more doorways or archways. She found one off to one side of the room. Passing that led her to the gallery, and from there, she could see a smaller door that was opened slightly off to the side.

When Meg came in through the door, she sighed in relief. Judging from the desk, the small library, the little bar by the powerful and expensive stereo system, the wall safe, and the scattered papers, folders and files on the aforementioned desk, _this_ was the study/den/office.

She went straight for the desk, clutching and glancing hard at every sheet that had writing on it, her mind programmed not to notice anything unless it had been titled with the crucial words, _"Mortality Report."_

Occasionally, Meg would glance out the windows in the room whenever she heard the sound of a car going by the house. She was thankful that such a sound was intermittent, so she could concentrate on her frantic, fearful search.

After she went through the loose, solitary papers on the desk, she grabbed at the folders, opening them with abandon and trying to speed read them as best she could without missing any important details as to its identity.

Read folders were discarded in haste in a small sliding pile on one side of the desk. While she had a folder in hand, Meg looked down at the desk, noticing with trepidation that the number of folders had dwindled dangerously. Only three remained unread.

She flipped open the one in her hand and perused quickly. It was nothing, just another financial report. Meg flung it to the discard pile, and then she reached over for one of the untouched folders, knocking the closest one from her to the floor.

Growling in frustration, she stopped rooting through the folders and bent down to pick it up. The fear that any second now the sound of that detestable limousine parking out front, and possibly trapping her in the house, made her heart jump a little. Just reaching down for that folder was probably an extravagance of time she didn't have.

The typed title on the fallen folder, "M.R." made Meg grin from ear to ear. She grabbed it without another thought and bolted out of the study.

She flew from the house, slamming the door and running hard out into the road. She reached her car, parked in the same spot she put it in when she came back from the celestial courthouse earlier that morning.

Meg tossed the folder in the passenger seat and then hopped in, turning the key and then accelerating away from the neighborhood, keeping a sharp, anxious eye out for Ragg's limo.

Behind her, a pick-up truck grinded its noisy way from the far end of the road.


	9. 9

Ragg sped as fast as legally allowed, so as not be caught and detained by the police or highway patrol while he was on the expressway. But now that he was on the private road that led home, he could be more liberal with his speed.

He hoped down to the soles of his feet that Meg hadn't made it to the mansion, as he prepared to slow down on the way to his driveway.

He hiccupped an anxious gasp when he saw up ahead, a shabby, red station wagon, pull away from the side of the road a few yards from his house, heading for the end of the road and the boulevards that would lead back into town. Spitting a curse, he accelerated the clunker in pursuit.

Meg glanced up at her rearview mirror when she reached the intersection and, while waiting for the light to turn green, relaxed upon seeing a badly conditioned pick-up sidling up behind her. Definitely not the conveyance of a rich man.

She closed her eyes for a moment and actually chose to think that she might have a chance of succeeding at all of this, when she heard shouting from somewhere in back of her. When she next heard a horn sound off from behind, she decided to see what was going on.

She leaned her head out of the window and called out to the obviously agitated driver.

"Hey, I have to wait for the light to turn green, too, okay?" she said.

The second the angry, pink head of Zachary Ragg shot out of the window of his purloined truck, Meg swore and went pale.

In the space of a millisecond, Meg debated on whether to tear out into the streets, red light or no. Luckily, the light had already changed by the time she stuck her head back in the car, so all she had to worry about, as she almost stood on the gas pedal, was surviving the inevitable chase that would either take her home or to the police station, depending on whether she lost Ragg in his search, or gained the attention of Quahog's Finest for reckless endangerment with a vehicle.

The station wagon leapt out into the middle of the intersection, Meg gripping the steering wheel tight to make a desperate bootlegger turn when Ragg's truck lurched too close to her.

Meg told herself that going back the way she came was the better course of action; it was more familiar, more direct. To hurtle further out of town seemed a foolish way to get herself lost.

She pushed the family car as hard as she dared as she flew back up the road. Ragg's truck, not as maneuverable due to its damage, got caught in another traffic jam when he tried to copy her move. Other cars stopped in time to avoid hitting him, but the tie-up slowed him down and gave Meg a considerable lead.

Despite the lead and the battered nature of the truck, Meg continuously glanced at her rearview mirror for signs of her pursuer. When she didn't see him, she slowed to avoid a ticket, but kept her guard up.

She soon reached the intersection that opened onto the street that held the shops and the mini-mall she visited earlier to buy the cans of furniture polish to trick her way into the mansion. She checked left and right and was about to pull into traffic, when the car was slammed forward suddenly.

Meg recovered quickly from the shock of the hit and turned her head around to see the smoking, overworked wreck of a truck chugging loudly behind her.

Again, she accelerated dangerously among the other drivers; silently apologizing for the danger she was clearly putting them in. She hoped that the bright color of the station wagon could in some way alert them to her approach and allow them time to evade.

Except for one time trying to impress her father, she never drove this recklessly before. Her heart was banging almost painfully in her chest as she warned people away with blasts of the car's horn and swerved this way and that to lose Ragg, who was now, for some reason, latched on to her, pushing his vehicle to the breaking point and refusing to yield.

A smile almost played across Meg's lips as she finally entered the expressway. It was very close to rush hour and the number of cars here had increased. As she cruised into a faster lane and even managed to pass a smaller, lighter car to get into it, she could see the truck was not having a better time negotiating the unforgiving lanes, or the now punishing speeds it needed to maintain a safe distance in relation to the other cars.

She put him out of her thoughts as she drove back into town. It wouldn't be long before Ragg's ride would break down altogether, hopefully in the middle of the expressway. Him being stranded there would have been a perfect way to end the day, as far as she was concerned.

Meg allowed herself to think tactically for a moment. Once she got off the expressway, she turned down another street instead of the one she planned on entering, watching her rearview.

Just as she thought, Ragg survived the traffic, managed to exit the expressway and followed her, as well, though his truck was now huffing ever-blackening smoke from the engine and out the tailpipe, and its speed was noticeably slowed.

Meg threaded a manic course through a midtown route of boulevards that branched out into such areas as an industrial section of the city. Here, more trucks of a far larger variety could be encountered among the cars, trundling alongside her or trailing behind.

The one thing she knew she couldn't do was run a red light. She was good enough to miraculously navigate at high speeds so far, but she knew she wasn't _that_ good. Driving of that caliber could only be attributed to aces like Mad Max or Elwood Blues, which she knew she wasn't. So she didn't let the situation rattle her too much when Ragg's heap finally caught up with her and shuddered as she waited for the light to change.

The only thing Ragg could do under the circumstances was curse, rail, and blow the horn whenever he could get close to her. He wanted her to know what he intended to do to her for leading him on this not-so-merry-chase.

He had to admit, through his anger, that this truck handled itself admirably. In fact, as he gripped the wheel tighter in anticipation to Meg obviously readying _herself_ to launch when the green light was lit, he could feel a connection with the vehicle. It, like him, would not give up short of complete physical breakdown, and he could just sense the power still remaining in it to fly out into the street to overtake his prey.

The green light shone and, as predicted, Meg burst forward across the intersection, but this time, Ragg put his foot down as hard as he could on the accelerator. The truck began to catch up gradually with her. She couldn't possibly drive like a bat out of hell the entire way home without one of them making a mistake in the process.

As if coaxing more speed out of the heap by sheer willpower, Ragg was now behind her in the lane. If she kept driving fast, yet _safely_ , he might be able to force her into a controlled crash, and then he'd snatch her away from the accident zone before anyone would know what had happened.

It was at that exact moment, however, that Meg had done the wholly unanticipated. She put on a sudden burst of speed on her way to another intersection just as the traffic light went red, but she didn't come to stop this time as she had before.

Rather, she continued on, and made an almost impossibly last-minute evasive swerve to avoid an oil tanker truck that roared out from a side street. Instead of impacting and folding her car around her in a possibly fatal t-bone, the station wagon swept away from the near-collision with a bullfighter's grace and sped up the street as it righted itself.

Ragg, however, could only enjoy watching the aggressively bold maneuver, before that selfsame tanker, unable to stop its forward momentum in time to save him, plowed into the side of the already damaged pick-up, causing the tanker's own cab to take damage that somehow reached as far as the oil tank itself.

Meg could feel the shock wave of the resultant explosion even from where she was. From the side mirror outside, she could see the hellish plume of flame and rich, black smoke flow from the accident like a titanic fountain. Although her adrenaline was surging in her veins, she managed to finally give a relieved sigh.

Her hands shook so hard, holding the steering wheel was difficult. She needed to cool down and think about what to do next. Up ahead was a large tract of land that she recognized easily enough and one that she knew would be deserted while the day still lasted.

She reached the location and turned sedately into the driveway of the local Drive-In Theater. She drove through the open, gravel-paved parking lot and stopped the car when she decided she was close to the center of the area. Then she collapsed in the driver's seat like an exhausted, loose-strung puppet.

Meg glanced wearily over at the folder lying beside her, but was too tired to read it in peace. She just closed her eyes.

The distant sounds of fire trucks made her open her eyes again and she wondered for a second if Ragg's death was mercifully quick. She had no love for the man after the truth was discovered about him, but she didn't want to feel cold about his passing, either. She didn't want the bitterness she admittedly sometimes harbored in herself to consciously manifest in that way.

After taking a cleansing breath, Meg picked up the folder and settled in for what she hoped would be a fascinating and incriminating read.

Upon opening, she slowly and carefully perused the file, and with each new sheet she read, the expression on her face changed. Not with dawning comprehension, but darker with more confusion.

Finances and charts met her scrutiny. Paragraphs concerning what looked like sorry profit quotas from one quarter to the next stood out for her inspection, and, most perplexing of all, a very thorough report detailing the legalities that were to involve Ragg's company.

Legalities that Meg, with her legally trained mind, could now easily recognize.

"Chapter 11?" she mused aloud. "Bankruptcy?"

There was no mentioning of the supernatural, no papers written in some glowing, celestial script that no Human being could possibly fathom, no godly power flowing from it to Meg's unworthy human touch. No report on the mass, earthly deaths of a clutch of naïve children. Nothing.

Meg just stared at the rest of the file, dumbstruck and confused. There didn't seem much sense going back to Ragg's house to search again. Time was still the enemy here.

' _What happened?'_ she pondered in frustration. _'What did I do wrong?'_

She was so deep in thought that she almost didn't hear the sharp tapping of metal on glass in her ear. She turned her head to the sound with a start, and knew she was caught. The deathly dark tunnel of a small gun barrel peered through the window at her, cold and non-negotiable.

Ragg, scorched and bleeding about the head and neck, held the gun on her with ill-disguised glee, his well-tailored suit now a singed testament to his incredible triumph of survival.

"Come on out, Meg," Ragg ordered with surprising cordiality. "Let's talk."

Meg closed the folder and held it as she carefully opened the driver's side door and slowly stepped out.

She closed the door and, at Ragg's gestured urging, walked a few feet away from the relative safety of the car. He stood facing her from a shorter distance, his gun hand more relaxed now that he was in control.

With his gun hand he pointed casually at the folder she still held. "So, I see you read my report," he said with a weary smile. "Anything in there you liked?"

Despite her fear, Meg wanted answers. "I don't get it," she said. "The Mortality Report is all about bankruptcy? I thought it explained about how a person died."

Despite his calling the shots, Ragg's face suddenly darkened in alarm by what she had just said, and his gun hand twitched into a tighter grip as a result. For the life of him, he couldn't understand how she could have possibly known that much about his and the Devil's business.

"How do you know about that?" he asked, trying to calm the worry in his voice. "I don't know how you know about the Mortality Report, but that's not it."

"Yeah, I gathered from what I read so far," Meg said. "But then why does it say "M.R." on the folder?"

Ragg wanted to laugh, but he smirked instead. Since she came such a long way only to be stopped by a mistake on her part, he might as well be the bigger man and explain her folly to her before her well-deserved death.

"That stands for "Must Resurrect," he said. "As you probably read, my great-great grandfather's company, his _legacy_ , is going belly-up. Subscription sales are way down and profits this quarter are a joke."

He cocked his head and said, as if talking to himself, "Damned I-this and I-that. The electronic media is making a dinosaur of the printed word. You've seen the news, haven't you? Newspapers are falling by the wayside because everything is going digital. Well, I won't stand for it. I love this company and the people who work in it too damn much to let those cowardly shareholders sell it off to some electronic media company, while they float off in their golden fucking parachutes. That's why when I become the new ruler of Earth, one of the first things I'll do is force Washington to bailout my company. It, like me, shall stand. And whenever anybody picks up one of my magazines, they'll know, _for all time_...that it's a Ragg."

Then the smirk returned on his face as he calmly began to walk around Meg, the smirk growing wider as she looked more apprehensive.

"So, you're going to kill me, because I know too much?" she tried to ask through a racing heart and a nervously dry throat. She didn't think she would die like this, killed executioner-style in the parking lot of a Drive-In.

Ragg stopped behind her, lining his body up in relation to hers for some as yet unknown attack. The gun arm was raised.

"No, Miss Griffin," he said with that same triumphant calm, as he then raised the gun high over his head, butt side down.

Before Meg could ask another question, which by her reckoning was probably her last, a shockwave of pain tore through her brain brutally, and her mouth hung open in surprise as Ragg brought the pistol's butt crashing down into the base of her skull. She buckled into an unconsciousness heap on the gravelly ground.

"You are," he said quietly.

The sun sank quietly in the late afternoon sky, marking the events of the wayward day. Car chases and explosions, fire and mayhem. In the dark numbness of oblivion, Meg knew nothing.

But in the space of time that passed since her fall and Ragg's subsequent leaving of the area after calling Caruthers via cell phone to pick him up, something stirred within her mind.

Outside the station wagon, an ethereal point of light appeared, hardly visible in the daylight, like the glow of a firefly. It gradually grew in size, substance and coherence until the ghostly form of Astral Meg coalesced into being.

"I'm getting way too much practice out of this," she muttered to herself as she looked around to check her bearings.

Turning to her car, she noticed that the engine was running. Then she spotted a clear hose emerging from the slightly opened driver's side rear passenger window, its slack length running from there around to the rear of the car. She didn't have to add it all up to see what was happening.

Meg went to the driver's side window, which was closed, and could see her unconscious self slumped across the driver's and front passenger's seat. The other windows, save the one with the hose running through it, were closed, as well, and the interior was becoming foggy with carbon monoxide fumes flowing from the hose.

She reached over to open the door and her hand and forearm slipped through it as if it wasn't there. She felt nothing as she tried to grab the handle, the whole front half of her arm emerging on the other side, ghostlike.

She could still see her body somewhat clearly from the deadly mists inside, but such a barometer couldn't give her an accurate assessment of how long she was in there and how much exhaust she breathed. She had to get out and fast, and she was already failing at that.

With fear of her imminent death, she began to panic and, not thinking, swiped impotently at the hose outside the car. Her hand blurring by, again, not feeling anything.

Meg wanted to scream at the futility and senselessness of it all. She flowed through the driver side door and tried to rouse her body, but she went too far and flowed halfway through her prone form and she had to back out in frustration.

She started to pace by the car, teeth gnashing and mind racing to find a solution, for something to use to save herself. She looked around the vast parking lot for salvation and found only tire tracks in gravel, theater radios in their stands, the blank wall of a movie screen far off in the distance. And a bum.

Meg did a classic double take when she spotted the homeless man rooting through the dumpster by the side of the concession stand. A living, human body was just the thing. She just had to get his attention.

She ran across the lot soundlessly, waving her hands and yelling to her physical limit to get him to stop his daily business and look at her. He continued to rummage unabated.

Meg finally made it over to the man, gesturing and calling out to him. For a second, the man looked out over the lot in the direction of Meg's car, and she thought that she somehow got through to him, but he simply coughed up some phlegm by her feet, scratched himself by his privates, and went back to his foraging.

Meg stopped moving about and let understanding come upon her. She was completely invisible to the human senses. That man would have had a better chance of noticing the lice reproducing in the thatches of his hair than notice her presence.

He was oblivious and it surely wasn't his fault, she reasoned. She just wished that Death had mention that little item when he taught her astral projection. It wouldn't be long, she fretted, before her body would finally succumb to this faux suicide and she truly became a member of The Choir Invisible.

Then a thought struck her. Maybe, in some weird way, she already was a spirit, in deed, as well as in word.

She couldn't physically interact with earthly objects like the car, but she wondered frantically if that didn't limit her to entering the living…and possessing it.

She took an appraising look at her would-be host and was thoroughly disgusted at the sight, and worst, the smell, of him. He looked like a devastated, lice-ridden Tommy Chong on the worst day of his life, but she made up her mind, when she remembered the knife's edge her life was balanced on, that she could do a lot worse. And so, with great and griping reluctance, Meg possessed her first body.

The man jerked upon having bodily control so clumsily usurped and he urinated on himself as a result.

"Ugh!" he said to himself, surprising Meg when it appeared that he even _sounded_ like Mr. Chong. "I didn't mean to do that. I gotta get control of this guy."

There was too much time lost to try to learn how to walk with her host, so Meg inelegantly turned and ran like a drunk on fire towards her car, almost tripping three times when she didn't watch the angle of the man's feet, and almost falling when she leaned too far forward.

At last, the homeless man arrived and Meg, meaning to get him to take the hose from the tailpipe, accidentally ran him into the back end of the car, causing him to slide across it and the hose, which loosened and came out.

Meg righted the body and made her way to the driver's side door. She spent a precious moment to peer into the car and was now having a hard time seeing her body through the smoke inside.

She raised the man's hand and, without preamble, and even less training, thrust it forward to grab the door handle. But in her panic, she didn't judge for distance, and the hand smashed painfully into the side of the door.

Despite the pain, Meg kept desperately ramming her host's hand into the door, yelping with every impact.

Although the hose was lying on the ground and no longer channeling the toxic smoke inside, her body was not removed from the car. She could still become a corpse if ventilation was not forthcoming.

Regretting what she was about to do, yet no longer thinking any more about the man's physical well-being, Meg was a force of nature concerned only with survival. She made him take two crooked steps back, raised his head skyward, and then rammed his head into the driver's side window with suicidal force.

The man's forehead collided with the glass and miraculously shattered it, showering Meg's body with tiny, glittering fragments, and leaving a gash across the homeless man's head. Stunned, he stumbled back and fell on his backside by the door.

Astral Meg exited the man and saw the smoke begin to waft heavily out of the hole in the window, her body becoming clearer to see.

As the noxious cloud was lifted and carried off by the life-giving winds, she could hear herself groan into sickly consciousness and stir in her seat.

As Meg's body slowly, painfully, began to sit up, her astral self faded away in the afternoon light. Her fingers clumsily probed and fumbled at the door handle, and upon unlocking and opening the door, she tumbled out onto the hard ground beside the man who helped her live.

Exhaust was thinning out of the car now, but Meg was too tired to notice or care. As the wind cooled her face and brought cleansing air into her stricken lungs, she slipped once more into unconsciousness, but this time she welcomed it, and fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

 

The surroundings were hazy, like a white room with no discernable walls, floor or ceiling, just an infinite space. There was no familiarity to the place, yet it didn't alarm Meg as she stood in what seemed like its center.

What did catch her attention was a human shaped silhouette coming towards her at a leisurely measure. When the figure came into the sourceless light of the place, Meg shed a tear and laughed at the joy of the meeting.

Standing at ease, as he had in life whenever he was around her, and wearing a smart looking army dress uniform, stood Specialist Kevin Swanson.

Seeing him meant that she didn't make it from Ragg's deathtrap, and she didn't care in the least, as she leapt up and crushed him a hug that made even him gasp for breath.

"Kevin...You're alive? Where are we?" she asked, not wanting to separate from him ever.

"That's not important, right now, Meg," he said tenderly into her hair as he held her against his broad chest. "What's important is that you get up. People are counting on you to see this through. You have to wake up, Meg."

Meg wanted to ignore him. She just wanted to enjoy her reward for suffering that cold, hard Earth by just being with him. Just spending eternity fused with him, physically, emotionally, spiritually, like a romantic work of art.

"Oh, I missed you so much, Kevin," she breathed out. Then she plucked up the courage to say shyly, "I wish I knew when you were going to ship out. I would have given you something worth fighting for."

The appreciative chuckle that came from deep within Kevin was worth the risk of embarrassment. Inside, she was glad she told him the depths of her feelings just then.

There was so much she wanted to say and share with him, eons to make up for lost time, but this was something she had to tell him _now_ , while the moment presented itself.

"I still think about you, sometimes, even after your father told me...what happened. I tried to be strong and move on," she said.

Kevin looked past the surface of her eyes and into the soul within. "I know. I used to hear what people said about you before I went away. I never believe them, and I still don't."

He then looked ashamedly away from her. He didn't want her to hear bad news that involved her in any way, but the air had to be cleared for the sake of further communication.

"My dad was never that happy that I was dating you, and he didn't want me to tell you that I was enlisting. I'm so sorry I didn't take a stand for you, Meg."

Already he could see the pain begin to cloud the connections between her eyes and her soul. The selfsame disappointments that became so universal in her life. Yet Kevin couldn't let these hardships take her away from him, whether in this life or the last. He gently drew her face to see his, as the conviction hardened his face with a love she never got to see in private.

"My dad was a scared, old man, trying to make me strong for _his_ own reasons. But you already beat me to it, Meg. You're _already_ stronger than me. I want you to know that before the end, I thought about you, too."

Meg could only cry in silence.

"You're my piece of the rock, you're the company _I_ want to keep, and I know that other people are in good hands with you," he told her with a pride that she could actually feel. "Go back home and prove me right, babe."

Meg sighed between her sobs and knew he was right. Others needed her right now, and she could tell that as long as she _breathed_ , she represented his sacrifice and his belief in her.

"I will, Kevin. I will," she vowed.

He said nothing else after that. He simply raised her face to his, and kissed her gently upon her lips.

Meg let the sweet contact bear her away from everything. She was buoyant, primal, at peace, and impassioned. If this was death, she could fear for nothing.

* * *

 

With the sunlight softly warming her cheeks and illuminating her clearing vision, she gradually woke up.

And saw, in horror and rising abhorrence, the homeless man kissing her full on the lips.

With a scream that echoed across the length and breadth of the parking lot, Meg gathered her strength in a quick surge, and bodily shoved the man away.

While she spat messily and wiped her mouth as thoroughly as she could, the surprised man said, "Hey, I'm sorry there, little lady. When I woke up, I thought you were into the whole car-crash-as-a-sexual-turn-on thing when I saw you laying there."

Disgusted, Meg shouted out, "Yuck! No! God!" It was when she looked at him and remembered what she made him do, that she calmed down in shame and kept her opinions to herself. He saved her and he didn't need to hear her appraisals of him.

"Look, thank you for helping me out, just now," she said softly. "You helped me out more than you know."

A casual look at the low-sitting sun in the sky prompted Meg to action once more. Much too much to do before the end, and she still had to do it.

Reaching into her pocket, she quickly pulled out some dollar bills, and, after getting wobbly to her feet, handed them to the man.

"Here, you deserve this. I have to go."

Meg snatched her toque from her head, reached in, and swept the glass pieces out of the driver's seat of the now cleared out car. She then put the already idling car into gear and took off, rear tires spitting loose gravel and obscuring dust in her wake.

Rubbing the dust from his bleary eyes, the man looked from the red car driving into the sunset, to the money in his hands. When he saw the accidental amount of money given, he brightened considerably.

"Seventy dollars?" he cheered with a wave in her direction. "Whoa! Thanks, babe!"


	10. 10

The household was quiet as the family slept that evening. In Meg's bedroom, her astral self stood, in courtroom attire, as she prepared to leave to go to work.

Once outside, she looked to the star-flecked night in anticipation. The day ended bittersweetly for her. Although she managed to escape with her life from Ragg's deadly trap and confirmed what was said about him via his own admission of his desire to rule the Earth, her money that she was saving for the mall, a whopping eight dollars, was now gone. A small price to pay for getting rescued, she figured.

She also had to lie about the broken car window, telling her parents that some unknown vandal broke the window while she was inside the Ragg building. It seemed flimsy and disingenuous, but somehow they bought the fib, especially when she offered to help by patching it up with a clever application of Saran Wrap and cellophane tape over the hole.

Somewhere out there, the court was waiting for her. She took a deep breath and blew out some of her tension. She had just gone a few rounds with one malefactor, and now she was going to duke it out with the greatest of their number. Although Meg was still a little nervous about that, she also felt a calm settle deeply within her. Most people manufactured their own fears, she reasoned. She _could_ win. She just had to have a little faith.

With one last look at what few stars she could make out from the neighborhood's light pollution, Meg produced an old-style parasol. She opened it, and raised it high over her head, and, like Mary Poppins herself, rose gently up into the sky. Past the houses and the streetlights, to where the night sky was cooler and darker, and the starry view was, to Meg's satisfaction, much improved.

* * *

 

Meg settled in her bench, going over the notes in her folders silently. She noticed that the general hubbub of the audience had been markedly louder when she arrived, but she didn't turn around to find out why. She was too far too busy. Jennifer and her three compatriots sat next to her, just as anxious as before, but not by much.

They saw Meg handle herself well enough that first day of trial, and even when she stumbled a bit during her cross-examinations, she still maintained her poise and gave the Devil a fair accounting of herself. They were hoping for more of the same now.

Upon the judge's presence, everyone settled down. When he sat in his chair, he looked out onto the audience and spoke.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a most honored guest here today, as you well know. Please give a warm welcome to the incomparable Mr. Vincent Price."

From a specially roped-off section of the audience area, the once Master of Horror stood graciously amidst the applause that rose like a wave.

After he sat back down, the judge spoke again. "As a treat for us, Mr. Price will recreate this venue into the style of Tim Burton's _The Nightmare Before Christmas._ " After this new applause died down, he looked down at the two parties and asked them, "Do the two of you have any objections with these proceedings?"

"Not at all," the Devil said pleasantly. "In fact, it would be like coming home."

"I guess it would be okay," Meg said, not completely sure how to take this.

She remembered watching the movie when she was younger and was enchanted with the spectacle, but didn't think much about it in later years. Now she was to revisit it again, and she didn't know how this would affect her defense.

"Mr. Price, if you would?" the judge asked.

The movie star stood again, but this time raised his hand, and with a snap of his fingers, the courtroom had changed into…

* * *

 

_**The Nightmare Before Acquittal** _

_The courtroom pillars were fractured and lined,_   
_With patches of mildew and dead ivy vines,_   
_Their light was extinguished, yet light was still there,_   
_Just dimmed most dramatically to lend atmosphere._

_Where once there were clouds, and where sunlight once thrived,_   
_A gloomy fog crept, like an evil alive,_   
_The stout, wooden furniture that stood everywhere,_   
_Was a cracked, stained, warped and weather-beaten affair,_

_Now patrons were changed, but not for the worse,_   
_Here, frightful was beautiful, and normal, the curse,_   
_Every scar was in detail, every scale was adored,_   
_Every claw was unique, and every horn could have gored,_

_They all ran the foul gamut, from devils to beasts,_   
_From zombies, to ghosts, to all things underneath,_   
_They gibbered and growled, and they groaned in their pleasure,_   
_All to honor dear Vincent, in their highest of measure,_

_The judge on his bench, now a werewolf in robes,_   
_Took a sniff of the air, and he held up his nose,_   
_Then a growl, through a grin that was toothy and large,_   
_Told all and sundry, that he still was in charge,_

_Surprising, or no, Old Nick had not changed,_   
_He just stayed the same when the room rearranged,_   
_Yet to keep to the theme, so as not to be blamed,_   
_He put on a pair of some kicking, black frames,_

_Meg looked at her charges, now pallid and dread,_   
_With their nooses, it appeared they were hung until dead,_   
_With faith in their counselor, they swatted at flies,_   
_And looked `round the courtroom, with dead, staring eyes,_

_Meg looked at herself through her cracked reading specs,_   
_Clothes were moldy and threadbare, where worms would collect_   
_Yet, she was not obtuse, and the clues that they gave,_   
_Meant that she was a zombie, a child of the grave,_

_It was true, Meg was undead, but was not unnerved,_   
_Since among the deceased, she was better preserved,_   
_She regarded the judge, to defend with a vigor,_   
_While she shook her right arm, to hold back the rigor,_

_Meg went up to the bench, with an aura of trust,_   
_Once she called up a witness, `twas acquittal or bust,_   
_She was new to the game, but she paid it no mind,_   
_She called her first witness, the thief, Sixty-nine,_

_Sixty-nine was a naga, an Indian breed,_   
_Of human and snake, with a serpentine weave,_   
_She slinked from the audience, all scaly of skin,_   
_Gave a wink to the zombie, and then was sworn in,_

_When asked, full name, occupation and where did she bed,_   
_The thief answered flirtatiously, Megan blushed red,_   
_I am Cynthia Roget, a professional thief,_   
_And I live down in Limbo, on North Fagin Street,_

_Megan thanked her, and prepared to ask questions more bolder,_   
_When she turned, and her left arm came off at the shoulder,_   
_There were titters from jurors, as she picked up her limb,_   
_Then, reattached quickly, she started again,_

_"Miss Roget, when we met, just a few days before,_   
_You said you knew a man I would work for, and more,"_   
_"That is true," she had said. And when asked for his tag,_   
_She answered quite honestly - Zachary Ragg,_

_As his name was recorded, Meg questioned again,_   
_"Now, Miss Roget, could you tell the court what happened then?"_   
_To which Sixty-nine said, without missing a beat,_   
_"You mean before or after we got down in the sheets?"_

_Before, growled the counselor, while the room was a-titter,_   
_Then the judge banged his gavel, and the noisemakers dithered,_   
_Then the thief reminisced, saying, "Just like a jinn,_   
_"Just before he had killed me, I once worked for him,"_

_"For my biggest of capers, I literally died,"_   
_"To foil hosts of angels and heavenly pride,"_   
_"And it fell in my clutches, this tome I would bear,"_   
_"A Report of Mortality, now hidden, somewhere,"_

_Meg was satisfied, but in her mind, she did fret,_   
_The report was the key, and it was not found yet,_   
_Though she risked her own life, and the day, she did rue,_   
_She had taken a chance and thought Sixty-nine knew,_

_With a sly look to Old Nick, Megan then asked,_   
_"Could you tell the court, please, which job was the last?"_   
_From where she was, Megan thought he'd pitch a fit,_   
_But she saw that his eyebrow just hiked up a bit,_

_Sixty-nine sat up straight, and before she began,_   
_There came a cacophony, like the wail of the damned,_   
_The Devil stood up to the judge, to atone,_   
_And told everyone there that it was just his phone,_

_That he used it for only the direst of calls,_   
_And this must have been one, since the trial had been stalled,_   
_He asked that he answer it, looking quite cowed,_   
_The judge snarled in annoyance, but had it allowed,_

_He thanked the judge quickly, then listened, intent,_   
_Then he looked at the thief, all expression was spent,_   
_"Forgive me; I know that your name is Roget,"_   
_"But my call mentions Harriet. Have the two of you met?"_

_The woman tensed up. "Yes, my mother is she,"_   
_Said the Devil, "Oh, no worries. She just ceased to be,"_   
_From the crowd-murmured worry, Meg angrily stared,_   
_At that cunning Old Nick, and the speech he prepared,_

_"Mother died in a car crash, though her reflexes, fleet,"_   
_"Saved a dog that had wandered his way in the street,"_   
_Poor Sixty-nine howled, and wept to the bone,_   
_Said the Devil; "I think I found my new ring tone,"_

_"Objection, Your Honor!" Meg yelled through the ranks,_   
_"It is obvious he badgered her with this sick prank,"_   
_"I bet you she lives, as my witness will learn,"_   
_He tossed her his phone, and it sadly confirmed,_

_It gave her the victim, the time, and the place,_   
_A feature no cell phone had yet to be graced,_   
_"What kind of phone is this," she asked. And to wit,_   
_Said the new feature there was called, TwitterObit,_

_Then Old Nick turned his worry right back the thief,_   
_And apologized deeply for intruding her grief,_   
_"I feel for the loss of your dear, sweet, old mother,"_   
_"But who knew that she was such an animal lover?"_

_The ball was in her court, as Megan had known,_   
_Should she press for advantage, or compassion be shown?_   
_In her non-beating heart, her old sweetness was found,_   
_Taking witness in hand, she said, "You may step down,"_

_Her witness was led back and sat on her throne,_   
_While young zombie Megan just stood there, alone,_   
_With a well-played and well-timed ace up his sleeve,_   
_Meg realized how hard fighting Old Nick could be,_

_With a heavy sigh, Meg called her next witness over,_   
_And hoped at least this one was stronger than clover,_   
_The girl came, a victim of the gallows that roped her,_   
_"I call Jennifer to the stand," Miss Griffin said, sober,_

_She greeted Jen, in front of all those concerned,_   
_And Jen, being Jen, greeted her back in turn,_   
_Then Megan asked Jennifer about her old life,_   
_About family, and school, and of friends, and the like,_

_"A sole daughter, and my father died when I was small,"_   
_"Mother worked, but I hardly saw her much at all,"_   
_"But my nanny, old Millicent, showed me much love,"_   
_"And my sadness with parents, I soon rose above,"_

_"Still at school, friends were rare, oh, they did not last long,"_   
_"Sadly, most of the kids thought my pleasant mood wrong,"_   
_"Then one day, a nice man from the school came to me,"_   
_"And said that he planned to stop this cruelty,"_   
  
_"He needed my help; I knew not the result,"_   
_"That one day, our pet project, would become his new cult,"_   
_"So, after much talking, I gave my consent,"_   
_"Never knowing how much of myself I had lent,"_

_"I know he did wrong now, and we did no better,"_   
_"But I like to think maybe his true heart unfettered,"_   
_"That, in spite of the fact of his base treachery,"_   
_"He saw children who needed help, children like me,"_

_It was then, Jen was seen in a whole different light,_   
_Meg never knew Jen lived the same social plight,_   
_Although home life, dissimilar, the fact had remained,_   
_Each girl felt connected, a sister of pain,_

_"No further questions," said Meg, her heart had been wrenched,_   
_As she left her dear friend, and walked back to her bench,_   
_The Devil was next, so as sweet as could be,_   
_Walked up to young Jennifer, and then asked of she,_

_"Can I call you Jennifer? I hope you do not mind,"_   
_"Not at all," said of Jennifer, sweetly in kind,_   
_"Now, I have some questions," he said. "Let us start,"_   
_"With why you seem so loving, yet have little heart?"_

_"You said that your mother worked hard every day,"_   
_"Yet you still moaned you had no one else whom to play,"_   
_"Though you smile very bright, your mind is as dim as a tomb,"_   
_"You could not have fathomed? She works hard for you!"_

_Poor Jen looked confused, she spoke truth as it came,_   
_But her mom was the last one she wanted to blame,_   
_Her mind raced like squirrels, she needed new tact,_   
_To protect guilt-less words from the Devil's attack,_

_She squared up her shoulders, said, "Yes, I know, but-"_   
_Old Nick paid her no mind, he would just interrupt,_   
_"And please tell us how well you knew of your nanny,"_   
_"Was she wicked of thought? Did she touch your warm fanny?"_

_Now Jennifer worried, she loved Millicent,_   
_But Scratch took affection, made it twisted and bent,_   
_Meg had warned her before, He will make you retract,_   
_All your guilt-less words, from the Devil's attack,_

_"She was never like that!" She yelled out from her stage,_   
_She, in all of her life, never felt such a rage,_   
_Said the Devil, looking innocent, and hardly to blame,_   
_"Well, I could have used some one like that. What a shame."_

_Meg was fearing for Jennifer. She began to be tense,_   
_She stood up and straightened, to be her defense,_   
_It may have lacked wit, or lacked much elegance,_   
_But she cried out, "Objection, Your Honor! Relevance?"_

_The judge snarled in agreement, and bristled his hair,_   
_And asked him, "Is all of this leading somewhere?"_   
_"Your Honor," he said. "Please do forgive me,"_   
_"I was headhunting prospects in this bad economy,"_

_He returned to his questioning, casual and cool,_   
_Saying, "You told us that you had no friends in school,"_   
_"Because of your character, it shone like the sun,"_   
_"But did you ever stop to think, that you were worthy to shun?"_

_"That perhaps these cool people were cool for a reason,"_   
_"Your niceness was off-putting, your pleasantness, treason,"_   
_"But it was obvious you could not see things their way,"_   
_"Did you know smiling too much leads to tooth decay?"_

_"Or that maybe they could not trust those things too cuddly,"_   
_"The girls who shant put out, with attitude, bubbly,"_   
_The poor girl was heartbroken, did not know what to say,_   
_True, she did ponder that sometimes, from day to day,_

_She would come home from school, her mind weighed down with loss,_   
_Before brainwashing freed her from all of those thoughts,_   
_Now they came with a vengence, she felt small in the room,_   
_Old Nick opened the floodgates, and her heart was consumed,_

_She supposed such a question would have had to have been asked,_   
_So she said, "But why would they think so ill of that?"_   
_The Devil leaned close, just to bring home his rule,_   
_"Why, because Miss Jennifer, being nice just ain't cool,"_

_Meg watched her in silence, her sadness, ill-hid,_   
_Jen looked more like a zombie than Meg ever did,_   
_But she did not yell now, and she never did cry,_   
_But for now, she felt even more dead than alive._


	11. 11

Meg sat in the near-empty courthouse cafeteria, human again, in spirit, at least, but feeling exhausted, dejected, and almost defeated.

She absently shoveled around the vegetables in her lunch platter while her mind resembled a whirlwind, trying to piece together what happened in court earlier.

Aside from Halloween coming early in the courtroom, she didn't expect things to go south so fast. The Devil broke her star witnesses down like a math problem, and he clearly wasn't even trying. If this was war, she was being woeful outmaneuvered.

Lacking anything to do, and even less of an idea, she just glanced around at the empty tables, steely counters, and white linoleum. A few paces away, she spied attorney Harvey Birdman and prosecutor Reducto chatting about a civil case they both were on opposing sides in.

She shrugged, and kept her mind back on the matter at hand, the lack of a strategy that could pull everyone concerned back from the brink. So far, she had nothing.

It just baffled Meg that she could do so well, early on, and now she was getting crushed. As though she was on the receiving end of a very well executed rope-a-dope.

She sighed and wondered why she was here. She knew she had to beat back the doubts, but they came unbidden anyway.

Meg fished in her purse and took out her cell phone. She was too down to go home by herself and was hoping that Death was free to pick her up after today's session.

She brought the cell to her head to speak, but got an earful of Death's and his mother's answering machine instead.

She lifted her head up to hear a voice coming from the hallway into the cafeteria. When she saw it was her opponent, gloating easily into his cell phone, she wanted to leave. Not out a sense of fear, although that would have happened, had she felt the need, but more out of a need to be alone and not have to hear him at all.

Until her dying day, she would never know why she didn't get up and go straight home, when he casually took the seat opposite hers and sat congenially down with a cup of tea.

"Why so down, Meg?" he asked, the smugness still showing somewhat through the mock-concern on his face. "You have to look at it the way _I_ see it. The only way it _can_ be seen. You have the makings of a good lawyer, trust me on that. But you're not scheming, you're _thinking_. It has its place, but it'll never give you that killer edge you need."

Meg didn't know if he could read minds, so she shelved the opinion she had of his advice, and just listened to him with wary respect.

"And what would I need to get that so-called _killer edge_ , hmm?" she asked.

"I'm glad you asked, my dear," he replied. "What you need to do is understand that the law is a _game_. It's not about guilt or innocence. A trial is just a game. And the object of the game is to convince the jury that you're right. That's all. Isn't that easy?"

In spite of herself, Meg laughed inwardly at the simplicity of that. It _was_ that easy if one looked at it in that light, and that was the genius of it. The simplistic was his friend, his dark ally. The evils of the world were inspired _by_ his simple acts.

It reminded her of the time she went to the art museum on a field trip. She saw Surat's _Sunday In The Park With George_ , and was given a lesson about the art style used, pointillism. The simple giving rise to the complex. If true evil was given an art form, it would have been pointillism, and the Devil would have been its master. Given the length and breadth of bloody, human history, his painting would have made Surat's look like a paint-by-numbers kit.

But she kept her face screwed in a skeptical scowl. It was easy to reduce the freedom or captivity of someone other than one's self into how charismatic one was to the jury, but it was missing the morality, and that was what she hooked on to. _Had_ to hook on to. It was the only thing that separated her from him. The last thing she wanted to do was seek or accept advice from the cloven one.

Besides, soon it would be morning on Earth, and that meant school. She'd have to go home eventually and face the earthly grind of dealing with her folks again, something that didn't make her feel particularly sanguine after just hearing Jennifer's testimony.

' _Why was it so hard to be a teenager?'_ she thought. _'Unless you had great looks, or was connected to the right people, or did what others in the herd expected of you, the deck was stacked against you, and the others constantly let you know it.'_

And what exactly was she going back to? Abuse? Ridicule? Living under the double standards of others?

She stiffened inside as she reminded herself to stop dwelling on that, because she could feel herself starting to slip into the old thoughts. The thoughts that her religious upbringing, such as it was, and, quite frankly, her fear, kept her from exploring to its tragic conclusion.

"Thinking about killing yourself, huh?" asked the Devil.

"Shut up!" Meg snapped, fearing that he _could_ read her mind, and momentarily not thinking about whom she was addressing. She froze in terror, her breath sitting in her chest. But the Devil just chuckled understandingly.

"Don't sweat it. I can see the debate playing out on your face. You gotta go home, but you're not really sure that you want to. I understand. If I had a family like yours, I'd take my sweet time, too. Especially that Peter. Man, and I thought _Job_ was long-suffering."

Meg cocked her head in surprise. "You know my dad? You know my family?"

"Pretty much, yeah. God's not the only one who can see people from far away, but I like to think that I'm more accessible. But, back to you. You know, you could just stay here. I know that you keep somehow astral traveling back and forth from Earth to here, so in a way, you've sort of done the hard part already."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you're already here as a spirit. All you'd have to do is just _stay_ up here. Let your folks deal with the body. Knowing them, they'd just as soon use it as a speed bump in their driveway, or something. But you wouldn't have to worry about all that because you'd be free, and that's the important thing."

"C'mon," said Meg, as though this was a chess move she saw from two miles out. She knew that he wouldn't be this chummy unless it was clearly in his favor, somehow. It was a trick, and that was all she needed to know. "That's not the answer, and you know it."

"That's not what your heart tells me."

"Like you'd know," she countered.

"I _would_. I know Man's heart very well. For instance, when you told the jury in your opening statement that you weren't going to paint the defendants as anything less than dumb for falling in line with that cult leader, you, my dear, was full of it."

"What?"

"That's right. You knew that Jennifer was part of a cult when she introduced the old man to you as their leader. And you were willing to join yourself, because you thought he had something you needed. Security. A place to belong. _Acceptance_."

"No, I-"

The Devil took a sip of tea, ignoring her rather weak protest. "Hell, girl, you even let him fit you for your very own track suit. I wonder what would have happened if you _did_ drink the punch when the others had. I suppose there would be no one here to try and save _you_ , would there?"

The truth of that hit her like a body blow, but she couldn't let him know that. "That's bull. And anyway, you're a liar."

"Hey, I'm just telling you what you told the jury," he said easily. "Unless _you_ were lying to them, just then. Besides, how could you have known what _their_ problems were like? Oh, yeah! You were just _like_ them. But that didn't stop you from denigrating them when you put them on display like that in front of the jury, you hypocrite."

Another body blow, and this one crashed into her ego like a thunderbolt. "What? Are you kidding? I was trying to _defend_ them. I was trying to show that they were capable of making mistakes, and made one by hooking up with the old man. I was saying that even though they had problems, they could have found better avenues for help."

"Like _you_ did? You almost fell in line with them yourself."

He was peeling her open like an onion, with expert speed, exposing her insecurities and fallibilities to the judgmental light of day. _'Why did he know these things?'_ she fretted internally.

"I didn't mean to," she tried to explain, but wondered in the back of her mind why she was trying to explain herself to _him_? "I just didn't…think. And why are you coming down on me? I thought you _liked_ trying to sway the jury to your way of reasoning. That's exactly what _I_ was trying to do."

"If you say so," he shrugged. "It's not like you were doing that for _me_."

"What are you talking about? I did it for me."

" _Really?_ "

Meg saw the trap close too late. "I mean…I did it for my defendants. _They're_ the ones on trial, not me."

He stopped mid-sip and suddenly turned seriously. Deadly serious. "Don't bet on it, sweet pea." Then he brightened again and asked, "By the way, how are those scars?"

"Huh?" said Meg, unnerved by the mood shift.

"The scars. You know, like the ones on your back from all of those poison darts that hit you in South America? Or the bullet wound in your chest, from where your own father shot you. Or in your shoulder, where your brother threw that spear?"

"What are you talking about? What scars?" she lied. Her face betrayed the knowledge that he knew it all too well.

"Now, who's lying?" he smiled. "But I mustn't leave out the most damning, the most important scars of all, the ones on your arms," he pointed at one of her arms, the healed lines, hidden under her blouse's sleeve, would be just visible under close inspection. "And the ones in your soul." He then pointed at her heart.

She couldn't hide anything from him, she knew now. It was foolish. Better to let her spiritual wounds be exposed now, than fight a losing battle each time, to conceal them. "Leave me alone." Meg said sadly.

"Why?" he pressed pleasantly. "This is Heaven, a place of truth. If we can't be truthful here, where can we? You know, I really love the way you debate on whether to kill yourself in the bathroom with the razor blade and with the suicide note on the sink, or to just simply do it in your room. Though, if I had to choose, I'd say your mother's suggestion of taking an overdose of pills after reading a Sylvia Platt book, was inspired. Who knew Lois' heart could be so black? I thought little Stewie was going to be the evil one. Who saw that coming?"

"Whatever," she said blankly, thinking back to that very moment, when her mother just didn't want to help her anymore, and when she needed her the most. _"Whatever happens, happens,"_ were Lois' words then, and it slowly stabbed Meg like a stiletto now.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, though. It's not like home is the _only_ place to get you daily dose of nastiness and cruelty. I'll bet school's a drag, too, huh? Ah, the three R's…reading, 'riting and _ridicule_. Though I must say, for a loudmouth like that D'amico girl, she sure does ask for it a lot when you show her what you're made of. I wonder if that's done on purpose. What do you think?"

"Whatever."

"Whatever? _Whatever?_ Oh, come on, you're much wittier than that. Aren't you the next Clarence Darrow? What kind of crusader would you be if you weren't true to yourself?"

"And what am I denying to myself, then?" Meg asked absently, not caring what she heard.

"Your deepest wish."

"Which is what, Amazing Kresken?" She was tiring of this dance.

"That you want to die," he said to her simply. "I thought that was _painfully_ obvious."

Meg's heart turned into glacial ice. She knew he was exploiting her weaknesses, but she didn't care. That weakness, that mystery, was hers. It was _her_ private despair, and she guarded it with all the priority of a state secret. He had no right to meddle or psychoanalyze, no matter what his agenda was.

"You don't know what I want," she said with a venom even he would have approved of. "You're just trying to twist me around with your lies."

"It takes a liar to know one, and you're lying to yourself, now, Meg. Your family's going to self-destruct; I want you to know that. Not all families survive themselves. It's happening now. It's happening with you," the Devil said simply.

He took another sip of his tea and continued. "Right now, that part of your brain, your _fight or flight_ response, is wondering if you should stay, in which case, you'll be swallowed whole by their dysfunction, sooner or later. Or whether you can make your own way out to a better place. Maybe _this_ place. It's not too late, and at least this time, you wouldn't feel a thing. No razors, no peanuts, yes, I know about your allergy, and _no return_. Isn't that like Paradise?"

' _Maybe,'_ she pondered impossibly. "Maybe…"

"Listen to me, Meg. You don't have to think about this right away. But I can make it happen… _if you want me to._ "

"You could? How?" she asked skeptically. Inside, she couldn't believe that she had asked that. But listening to him was becoming… _easier_ , so much more natural. _'Why am I listening to him?'_ she asked herself in thought.

"Put in a request to stay here in Heaven. Despite what some would say, I still have some pull up here. Now, Ragg doesn't know that you're still alive, despite that boob trying. If you can arrange to have your body resting someplace private outside the home, I can call Ragg and tell him where it is. He could come over and dispose of it, and you can stay up here for eternity. Now that's a deal you can't beat with a stick."

"I suppose, I could…" It was so easy. It made… _such good sense_. Easy was good, too, wasn't it?

"Like I said, don't rush into it. Think about it back home, and then let me know, okay? 'Cause, God knows there are worse things you could do with your life than waste it being loyal to the scum who treat you like dog shit. You're better than that, by a long way out."

_He was right. The door was there. He revealed it all to her. All she had to do was open it and pass through. Her choice. She didn't owe her fickle family a blessed thing to keep her from the happiness that had been denied her for so, so long._

"Yeah. I _do_ deserve better than what's been happening to me. It just hurts so _bad_ sometimes, and I get so tired of taking it all the time," she admitted, feeling a little more fatigued just from the telling. "I just want some peace. And I just want them to care for me like I do them. I just want _someone_ to care."

" _I_ care, Meg. You can believe that." He reached over and held her hand and she didn't flinch. His touch wasn't nauseating this time, but actually gave her a warm feeling of comfort she didn't think she ever felt before. The last time she felt anything similar, it was long ago, when her mother once held her, when she was very young and she fell and hurt herself.

* * *

 

She embraced the dream, and the dream was real. In her mind, as clear as if she were watching a movie, she could see the battered, ruined body of herself found by hikers near a lonely woodland stream. Her picture on prominent display behind Tom Tucker as he gave a momentary report of her death and the lack of clues as to her killer's identity.

The next moment became the site of her private funeral, and the small knot of friends she had wept sad tears alongside the majority of her family, now realizing to their regret and private, everlasting shame, how terribly they treated her and how empty their lives had now become from her absence. Only Stewie, for whatever reason, held still, held silent.

Then the world had changed, melted away into the distance of the past. The vista was now breathtaking. Beautiful spires of celestial cities spanned the eternal sky. Golden, stallion-driven chariots crossed the air in loose traffic patterns, and caught the sun in fiery reflections. Those with the ability, flew on powerful, snow-white wings.

The entire skyscape cried to her a freedom she couldn't begin to explain. Tears flowed unnoticed from her eyes as the reality of where she was finally hit her. Heaven, in all its understanding, in all its majesty, in all its unfathomable mystery, opened up to her like a sweet, cool breeze on the hottest of days, washing every pain, every memory, every disappointment in her life away forever.

She walked reverently to a massive, gilded gate where Saint Peter himself, sat lounging by his desk. Meg didn't want to disturb the man, but she desperately wanted to enter The Kingdom.

"Excuse me," she quietly said to him. "Could you help me out? I'm trying to get in, and think I have to wait until you check me out, or something."

Peter snorted awake and peered at the girl curiously. "Oh, hello there. Sorry, young lady. You wanted to get in, you say?" He reached into a drawer in his desk and fumbled for his folders. "Be right with you. I just have to look for your Mortality Report."

He kept rummaging in the various drawers for it for some time, and Meg began to worry a bit.

"Are you sure it's in there?" she asked, fighting to keep the anxiety from her voice.

"It should be," he answered. "Strangest thing. This happened once before. Couldn't find it no matter where we looked."

Now Meg was getting more nervous. "Was there a young, black woman dressed like Catwoman running around here lately?" she asked. She was having her suspicions.

"Not that I know of," said Peter, scratching his head, perplexed. "I hated that movie, but he might be able to help you." he pointed with his chin to the figure behind her.

"Who?" she asked, before turning to see for herself and gasping in confused surprise to see the Devil standing calmly behind her.

"Wait! What are _you_ doing here?" Meg asked, before falling silent with a numb dread as The Prince of Darkness reached behind himself and produced a snow-white folder with her full name typed in gold on the cover.

"What's that?" she asked him again, comprehending dawning in her eyes. "Is that… _my_ Mortality Report?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he opened the folder, put on a pair of reading glasses, and read to her in a clear voice.

"Megan Griffin. Female Human. Time on Earth: 18 years. Time of Departure: Thursday/March 18/2010. Cause of Death: Suicide. Warning: Subject has rejected the love of the Father by ended her own life, which was given to her by Him. Subject is hereby disavowed from The Kingdom for all time, and shall be penalized to the fullest extent of the Law."

He looked up after reading and said to her, with a predator's grin, "That's me."

"He's right, I'm afraid," the saint chimed in sympathetically. "Why would you _do_ such a thing, child?"

Meg was beset on both sides by divinely correct protocol, and she never felt like such a fool.

"I-I was told I _could_ ," she explained with a fearful sob, the magnitude of her error terrifying her to her core. "I don't understand. I-I thought it wasn't wrong if I let _Ragg_ kill me. It was a mercy killing, right? Not suicide!"

"Afraid not, _mon cher_ ," the Devil explained. "See, _you_ set yourself up for Mr. Ragg to kill you in the woods. Even though _he_ did the dirty work, _you_ arranged it. That counts as an _assisted_ suicide, in my book, as well as 'Da Big Guy's. So, is there anything you'd like to add before sentence is carried out? If you want to scream and cry, that's fine. I'm pretty used to it by now."

She did just that and more, as he grabbed her, kicking and clawing at the clouds, by the collar, dragged her to the trunk of his crimson sports car, and dumped her in with fearsome finality.

Peter could still hear her wailing and pleading, muffled in the space of the trunk, as the Devil gunned the engine, and drove for home with his latest prize.

He shook his head sadly. "Poor girl. I kinda liked her. Oh, well."

* * *

 

The terror of her waking dream was so real to her, it made her jump, her hand jerking out of his.

She just stared at him, out of breath, fear and shock of the vision making a mask of her face. The betrayal was smoothly brutal. The con was exquisite in its execution, and the tragic punch line would make her shiver for days afterward.

She hated him as he looked at her quietly and continued to drink his tea. With a few deep breaths, she calmed down enough to put everything into perspective, and then she placed the hatred squarely on where it truly needed to be. On her.

She couldn't believe how easy she made it for him. He walked in the room and she bared her soul to him as if to a lover. The shame crept into her face as crimson blush and she gritted her teeth in a vow that she would never let her guard down ever again when he was around her.

"You want me to die, don't you?" Meg asked in a frosty voice. "How could I have been so _stupid_? I gave you all the tools you needed to get the job done, didn't I? It's got _nothing_ to do with my life, or even the lives of the kids. I'm just in your way, so you wanted to eliminate a problem."

"Nothing personal, my pet," he admitted.

"Wrong. I'm nobody's fucking _pet_ , got that?" she spoke with new steel in her voice. This slave would break her shackles. She stood from the table, hands on the tabletop, and leaned forward to face the Devil squarely.

"And you get _this_ , too. I'm through walking on eggshells just because you're around. I was more afraid of _myself_ than I was of you, and that's gonna change around here. You know, I was really going to let you get away with having me kill myself. What a laugh. Well, Mr. Scratch, I decided not to listen to your mojo anymore. You're not my friend and you're not my master. You're just my _enemy_ , and nothing more. Now, I've got a case to win, and you've got one to lose."

The Devil said nothing still as Meg gathered her cell phone and her purse and walked past him towards the door. She turned just as she got to the threshold, and said to him with returned audacity, "Oh, and if you're feeling threatened by my chances of winning? Tough shit."

She marched out of the room, buoyed by an exhilaration of facing down the Devil, and an inner strength she hadn't known before.

Meg strode by clerks and paralegals on her way back to the courtroom, her mind still scrambling for a strategy. It felt good to be free of the Devil's grasp, but it wasn't over yet. She _might_ still be in danger from this case, but Jennifer and the rest of the children certainly were.

She attempted to slow down her thinking and remember what she was planned to do overall in the trial. She wanted to show the court that the kids were not brats who wanted attention at any cost, but were victims, solely. If that was the case, then who was the victimizer? Clearly, that role fell to the cult leader. And how did he go about doing that?

The light bulb shone in her mind like the top of a lighthouse.

She never _did_ get around to questioning the cult leader. It slipped her mind after that entire courtroom _Monster Mash_ nonsense. She forgot that she had to establish how he did his brainwashing, since, if it could be proven that such tactics did exist, it could bring her that much closer to victory and acquittal. He would have to be called in as both a witness and an _expert_ witness on cult indoctrination.

Meg gave a tight grin in satisfaction of the formulation of a workable plan at last. That didn't stop her from thinking of a suitable counter-punch to the Devil's inevitable cross-examination. She couldn't stop him from asking questions calculated to blow her proof to shreds, and that took some of the joy from her step as she neared the assigned courtroom.

So lost in thought was she, that she didn't hear Death call her, and almost bumped into him as he approached her.

"Death? What are you doing here?" Meg asked. "I tried to call you, but I just got your machine."

"Yeah, I know. I came home a little while ago and heard your voice on this long, weird message. Sounded like you were talking to somebody," Death explained. "I wanted to call you about it, but I just kept getting a busy signal. I don't think you hung up, there. Anyway, I thought something was up, so I came out here."

Meg waved it off. "Don't worry, I'm alright. Just had a chat with…"

A thought, a beautiful, _beautiful_ thought then blossomed into being in her head, and she radiated a smile she only gave whenever she had gotten a hold of a _really_ good bag of weed.

She grabbed the front of Death's robe, not worrying about his touch, since she was already a spirit, and stared pleadingly at him.

"Please tell me you still have that message on your answering machine!" she said in earnest.

Death, not knowing what was going on with this crazy girl, answered. "If I say I do, will you _not_ shake me to pieces here in the courthouse?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, okay. I still have the recording. It's an old machine my mom never got rid of. Ma never was good when it came to programming that thing. Probably set the record timer too long and got…what exactly are you looking for, anyway?"

"You said that the message was long and weird, right?" Meg asked breathlessly. "I bet…I _hope_ , that it recorded the whole conversation between me and the Devil. I can use this, somehow."

Meg let go of his robes, to Death's relief, and by way of gratitude, he asked, "You want me to go get it for you?"

"Yes, would you? The whole machine," she said as she straightened her blouse and pictured her victory strongly in her mind. "This may just turn this case around for us."


	12. 12

The elderly cult leader sat on the witness bench, sullen and quiet.

He knew he was going to be called to the stand eventually by Meg, ever since she made her intentions known to him in Limbo. He didn't know what she would need him for. Every time he looked at her, the thought that he almost killed her and the other innocent children in his charge with his shameful madness, haunted him.

His violent death at the hands of Stewie Griffin, freed him from the insanity that drove him to it. And in his release, the blinders were removed, and his earthly actions were exposed to the damning light of day.

Although he served in other cults until he could found his own, he never did anything more controversial than have a short-lived fling with a boy in the school he worked in prior to his being fired and rehired as a music teacher in another school. Committing mass murder via his twisted imaginings about U.F.O.'s, science fiction, and peer pressure, was the clear exception.

But since none of the events that he wanted to transpire happened at all, he squeaked by, following his death and judgment, to remain in Limbo for perpetuity. His neighbors told him he got off lucky, but he never thought so. He became introspective and increasingly repentant.

Through Meg, he saw a way to pay something back for his wayward actions, when she came to his home and told him that she would call on him when the time came. Now he sat on the bench, waiting for the young counselor to start her questioning, and hoping he could serve her well today.

Meg walked slowly to the old man, weighing every word she said with the care of a jeweler, and asked, "Isn't it true that you were the leader of the Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult? A cult you created firsthand?"

"Yes," he said simply. Just hearing the name of his wretched religion made him numb from within.

"And according to your records in The Book of Life, you were in many other cults before that one. Correct?"

Again, he answered in affirmative.

Meg turned to face the whole of the court. "Would you tell the court the nature of your work _in_ those previous cults, please?"

"I was in charge of indoctrinating new members into the cult. I was very good at it, so they always used me, since I was trained by the best in the business when it came to behavioral modification," he said.

"And who was this expert?" Meg asked.

The old man seemed to hesitate, but then pressed on. "Well, I never knew his real name, but…Well, let's just say that when it came to brainwashing, as you say, there was a reason they called him, "Mr. Clean."

From a back row in the audience, Mr. Clean, gleaming t-shirt and all, stood up in a bald-headed rage, and began maneuvering his way past the other sitting people, to get to the aisle, and ultimately, to the old man.

"You son of a bitch! You sold me out! I'm gonna clean your clock for this, you motherfucker! I'm gonna rub you out! You're going down the _drain_ for this!"

He managed to get halfway down the aisle before several winged security guards appeared, subdued him, and forced him out of the courtroom, his rants still being heard as they led him away.

"I know people! You can't give me the brush-off like that! _I'm Mr. Clean, dammit!_ "

After the judge demanded and finally reestablished order in his court, he allowed Meg to continue.

"Thank you, Your Honor," she said before turning back to the old man. "Now then, could you tell the court, in your own words, the techniques you used to brainwash the members of both the cults you worked for and your own?"

The old man actually straightened in his seat and looked hauntingly pleased, as if he were waiting so long for someone to ask him that very question.

As though all the guilt he felt over the years didn't exist, or didn't matter, he laughed breezily and assumed a relaxed air, saying to her, "Well, my dear, the word _brainwashing_ is a crude and slightly incorrect term. _Coercive persuasion_ , which is what we call such behavioral modification, is the standard term. It's more clinical and less emotional, and therefore more credible to people. However, people will still dismiss such a thing because their collective ego won't allow them the come to terms with the fact that human beings are vulnerable and can be led by suggestion."

"So people _can_ be led," Meg said, glancing meaningfully towards the jury. "Like with an ad campaign during the Super Bowl, or a screening of the latest Twilight movie."

"Yes," he agreed. "Even teen-oriented _Disney Channel_ broadcasts can be used. There are many insidious ways to twist the mind to the desires of the controller. Anyway, the techniques I used were similar to the refined and time-tested ones done in Communist Mainland China and North Korea."

"First, I ship them someplace where they're cut off from all of their old social ties, like an old tenement building in New Jersey," he continued. "Next, I restrict all access to accurate outside information with a steady diet of _Fox News_ and Tea Party newsletters. Communication is also curbed by the use of tin cans on strings and old cell phones from the 1980's. Only the crappiest of reception will do."

"On top of that, the members are given a protein-poor diet that will lead to them not feeling well, and suggestible to our telling them that they feel bad because they have impure thoughts, like wanting to have more honesty in politics. And finally, a lack of sleep due to repeated viewings of _Code Monkeys_ , _Two and a Half Men_ and _According to Jim_ will usually break the will of even the strongest mind."

"No _Mind of Mencia_?" Meg asked.

"No," he said sharply. "The idea is to break their will, not shatter their reason for living."

Even with the audience, and more importantly, the jury, squirming in their seats at the graphic details of the old man's techniques, Meg thanked him and declared that she had no further questions.

As she walked back to her bench, she grinned at the murmurs and talk his testimony generated. They reacted just as she hoped, for now. They'd feel disdain for the cultist, and by inverse proportion, they'd feel _more_ pity for the children. She had to admit it. Old Nick was right on the money when he said that it was just a matter of swaying the jury, however, she was going to sway them in the direction of _good_.

Meg sat down and watched the Devil stroll up to the witness stand. Inside, she prepared herself for the cross-examination, and the battle, yet to come.

"You sound pretty knowledgeable about psychology," the Devil told him.

"Thank you."

"Yes, you really know your way around a behavioral studies course. But I think you should stop fooling the good people of this jury with your lies and psycho-babble."

The accusation knocked the wind out of him. He looked like he wanted to respond to it, but looked completely ashen, as well.

"You see, not everyone is fooled by you and Miss Griffin's little stage act," the Devil pontificated. "The Book of Life, which knows and records everything about everybody, knows _you_ very well. So, should I tell the jury that you suffered from low self-esteem, that you liked little boys, and was a paranoid mess? Or should you?

The shocked cult leader fell silent in disgrace, but still trembled.

Smelling blood in the air, the Devil pressed his attack. "Should I tell them that you were fired from one school for deviant behavior, and that the only reason you worked from one dead-end cult to another was because your own fragile, glasslike ego was so close to cracking, it would have resulted in a nervous breakdown, unless you had somebody, _anybody_ , listen to you. Or should you tell them?"

"I…I-"

"You were, and _are,_ a sad, insane, little man with delusions of grandeur."

Meg bolted from her chair. "Object-"

He then turned to look in Meg's direction with a self-righteous snarl on his lips. "And if the _counselor_ wishes to object, then I will remind her that his psych review is already logged in The Book and it will confirm what I say. After all, as we all know, The Book of Life _never_ lies."

Satisfied that he sufficiently hamstrung Meg, he turned his attention back to the now stricken soul on the stand, mentally licking his chops.

"Now, knowing what we know about your dubious and questionable mental state when you were alive, how are we suppose to trust your word, _now_? You talk a good game about mind control and your coveted role in the cults you were in, but it seems that you were never qualified in any of the things you said you did. You don't have a single certificate, diploma, or even a scrap of piece of paper that says that you were even enrolled in Psych 101 in a _community college._ So how are we to take your testimony, except as nothing more than _pure, desperate fiction?_ "

He walked slowly, deliberately, towards the jury for effect. "For example, we know that _Jennifer_ was the one who prepared the punch for consumption, she was one of your most trusted members, and served as your recruiter when you set down roots in Quahog. But why? What made her your special helper? Were her recruiting techniques that successful? I would imagine so, if they could snare our defense attorney here so easily. But I think the good people of the jury would like to know what kind of person you were?"

It was too much. The guilt, the speed and effectiveness of the badgering, and worse, the eyes of the jury that continued to stare accusingly back at him, and him, alone. He broke.

"She's my…stepdaughter." He had to wait until the people got over their gasps of surprise before he could continue. "I had left a previous cult after trying to take another leader's control of it, on the grounds that I was a more spiritual person that the other."

"Dueling messiahs?" Meg asked incredulously to herself.

"I went to another town after I was fired from the first school, and because that school down played the reasons for my dismissal, I was able to get a job as a music teacher there for a while. While at the new school, I met a nice girl that no one wanted to talk to, Jennifer. She was the daughter of a widowed, well to do, female surgeon. Every day at school, I could see that no matter how nice she was to the other kids, they just snubbed her. I thought it was so sad that they thought her sunny disposition was "uncool", the scum."

"After getting to know Jennifer's mother for a time, we were married. Remembering how Jennifer was treated at school, I used some of the wealth I married into to found a youth organization, with Jennifer as my assistant during the summer vacation months. The kids there were impressionable, lonely and looked up to me, something that had never happened in the previous cult."

"It was when we were out stargazing one night, that I came up with the idea of a new world without pain or social stigma, a place just like Heaven. And there would be a body of workers, people who would spread the word about this place and help get troubled, young people _to_ that place, and thus, _Heaven's Helpers_."

"I rented out a series of cabins in the woods to secretly hammer out the belief systems of my new cult. That I, and I, alone, was a cosmic messiah, sent from this "Planet Heaven", to find and save as many young people as I could from a cruel and indifferent world, before returning one special day, when my "planet" was in alignment with Earth."

"And because Jennifer was always there to help me with the organization, she became the first victim of my well-learned brainwashing techniques that I eventually used on the other kids that she recruited and I convinced to join my new cult in the woods. Eventually my wife divorced me upon learning about the cult, so I secretly transferred a significant amount of money from her bank account, packed up Jennifer, the kids and the cult, and left for a new town. That town was Quahog."

He bowed his head in exhaustion and defeat. His secrets, like before, were lain bare for others to react to, and this time, in the presence of his stepdaughter, who looked across the courtroom at him with a mixed expression of pity, betrayal, and regret at her own naiveté that trapped her in his web, so long ago.

Yet, inwardly, he smiled a little, too. It wasn't the Hell he hoped for, but the scars from her pained looks, that he would bear for all time, he _did_ hope, would be the apology to Jennifer that should have been said so long after their respective deaths.

"No further questions, Your Honor," said the Devil. He walked back to his bench, but even from that distance, Meg could see the wisp of a smile play on his face.

Meg stood slowly from her chair and addressed the judge. At the same time, the sound of the room's double doors creaking open could be heard, as Death walked into the room, carrying an old answering machine under his emaciated arm.

"Your Honor," Meg said as Death brought the machine to her bench and put it down. "I would like to admit this as evidence. I think this will have significant bearing on this case."

The judge looked thoughtfully at the machine, exhaled as he made a decision, and allowed it as evidence.

After Meg thanked the judge, she went back to the stand, though the Devil could almost see the light footwork of a skip in her arrival. Old Nick looked closely at Meg, actually wondering what she had in mind.

She placed the answering machine on the stand next to the microphone and searched for a socket.

"Uh, Your Honor," Meg asked, humbled a bit. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could plug this up?"

"Step back," the judge ordered her.

She obeyed as the judge raised his hand in the shape of a gun, and pointed at the inert machine. A blue-white bolt arced from the "barrel" his fingers made, to the device. The machine powered up with no damage to it.

Impressed, Meg thanked the judge with a smile and then turned to address the quizzical jury.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You have heard my questions put forth to this gentleman here." She pointed at the cult leader. "You've heard his testimony answer my questions and even when he was _railroaded_ by the prosecution, he still explained to the court of his expertise in child psychology, organizing groups, behavioral modification, and even gathering funds, to some extent. All of these things can and were taught to him by the various cults he served under."

"But let's focus on what the Devil focused on in the beginning, which was that the children under his care were not naïve, but instead were attention-hungry bastards without a shred of consideration for anyone else. You've heard my witness say that the kids he worked with while he was creating his cult, _in secret, by the way_ , were impressionable. How could they have wanted him to punish their parents and other people they supposedly thought were against them, when the cult they ultimately joined, supposedly for that very reason, hadn't even _existed_ yet? They didn't even know he a cult leader until he was ready to bring them in. Until that time, they only knew that he was someone they could confide in while they were camping out and went on nature hikes."

"The point I am trying to make people, is that people can be controlled. They can be seduced, and they can be tricked. All it takes is a mind that's clever and a heart that's weak. To prove, once and for all, to you, that brainwashing, mind control, coercive persuasion, or just a good old-fashioned mind fuck is possible, you will hear it happen to me."

Again murmurs rose and fell in the courtroom and the Devil, for the first time since the trial, sat up in concern. What was she playing at?

"During recess, the Devil visited me in the cafeteria and talked to me. However, what I thought was a chat turned out to nothing more that a calculated way of getting rid of me, so he could win the case. At the time, I forgot to turn of my cell phone and the answering machine. This answering machine caught the conversation. I will now play the tape inside, for your consideration."

She pressed the play button and the jury, the audience and the Devil were not ready for what they heard.

"Ma! Look, don't ask, but I lost my wallet and I'm in the lock-up right now. I was taking a break over at that strip joint and some jock asshole thought I was making eyes at Tangerine-"

A loud, warning cough from Death made Meg fumble for the fast-forward button. A few moments of titters and a humble apology later, and she was ready again.

This time, the jury could hear it all. Every sly innuendo said. Every sad truth admitted. Every heinous thing spelled out in detail.

The Devil glanced anxiously towards the jury, who looked back at him with disapproving eyes. He had lost control of a situation and he hated it immensely. His jaw tightened at the absurdity of it. The king of all lawyers, outmaneuvered by a pathetic, unloved mortal. Outrageous!

He gave Meg a look that could split steel and a tremor, barely felt at first, started from underneath him, as though he were ground zero to an explosion that was just being born.

Then a quake, not the same as the one that heralded his expulsion, but near enough, leapt out from his position and focused its path towards Meg and the old man.

Hearing the consternation, Meg turned to the attack, genuinely surprise that he would stoop to this. Then she did what any good Roman Catholic would do in such a circumstance. She crossed herself, and with one hand, held on to the witness stand to brace for the impact. From the double doors, she could see winged security guards soar out towards him.

The tremor died right by her feet, and Meg gave a relieved sigh from the close save.

Grimly, the judge rose from his seat, thin bolts of lightning playing between his fingers, and he towered over everyone concerned.

"No one is to be harmed before the presence of this court of Law. Both parties will join me in chambers," the judge said to the both of them.

The guards warily left as the crowd attempted to compose themselves, and Meg and the Devil both silently stood and followed the judge out of the courtroom.

Inside his chambers, the judge sat by his desk, his fingers interlaced as he patiently listened to the argument that played out before him.

Although Meg was nowhere near the Devil's equal in matters of strength, as it was proven in the tape, however, strength of _character_ was another thing entirely, and the judge was surprised at the aplomb she was showing during the prosecution's tirades.

"How could you allow her to admit that thing as evidence?" the Devil fumed. "Have you ever heard of the term, entrapment? Or are the clouds in your head, as well as all around you?"

"Mr. Scratch," the judge said with equally surprising calm. "Unless Miss Griffin is a mind-reader, there is no way she could have known that you were going to engage her in conversation, so this was not a set-up on her part. Now the nature of that conversation has all of your trademarks, so it's very unlikely you came into that room just to talk about the weather. I do believe you _did_ intend to have Miss Griffin die by her own hand, or at least indirectly so, so that you could get rid of an obstacle _and_ net yourself a bonus soul, if you ever won the case."

"But-"

"Oh," the judge added with ice in his voice. "If you ever address me in so disrespectful a tone again, I'll have you arrested for so fast, it'll make your horns spin, for contempt of court. Is that a term _you've_ heard before?"

Through gritted teeth, the Devil bowed and said, "Yes, Your Honor."

However, he didn't spare a single drop of his aggravation on Meg, who stood by and watched him rant and rave with no apparent effect.

"The judge is right," Meg told him. "You did try to kill me. That's dirty pool, old bean. So, I thought I play rough, too."

"Worm," the Devil spat. "You have no _concept_ of how I play rough. And if you think this last minute desperation play of yours will garner you any sympathy from the jury, you're wrong. Dead wrong."

Meg cocked up an eyebrow in mock-surprise. She'd gloat good-naturedly, but would be careful not to fully antagonize him.

"Is that a threat I hear? You heard the judge. No one is to be harmed in the courtroom," she said innocently.

Meg was no fool though. Inside, she rightly worried. She knocked him off balance with the tape, but he'd bounce back soon enough and make this personal. Plus, she was safe, but only so long as she worked in the courthouse. When she returned to Earth, she knew she was fair game.

"By the way, do you think I have my _killer edge_ , now?" she asked him. "Lead the jury to your way of thinking. Wasn't that what you said? I just learned from the master. Didn't think I was such a quick study, huh?"

The Devil knew it was hopeless to have a conniption fit here in the judge's chamber, or anywhere else in the courthouse, for that matter. Like Brer' Rabbit, all of this was _Meg's_ briar patch. So, he simply softened his features and smiled wearily. His passion, that he loved so much, sometimes got the better of him. He would not let it do so now.

Acknowledging the judge, he asked, "I trust that the trial will still proceed?"

"Provided that you maintain decorum in my court, yes," the judge answered.

The Devil looked pleased, then he turned to Meg, who now sported a more wary expression when _his_ had changed.

"As for you, here's the deal. You may _just_ turn this jury around and save those souls. Just. Miracles have been known to happen. But do you really think that they're the _only_ ones who pulled the plug on their lives because their parents shut them out, perhaps? Nay, nay, I say. Peer pressure, parental neglect, and child abuse. I started it all, baby. You should know. When I see how your own family lays into you, _whoo_ , even _I_ almost feel guilty."

"But make no mistake, Ally Macbeal, it's all me. When your mother feels the need to put you down, essentially because her own father put _her_ insecure ass down when she was your age, it's yours truly. When that waste of flesh father of yours hurts you, and then _ignores your pain_ , don't like to brag, but, it's just little old me. Hell, child, I _am_ The First Rebel. Because of asshole parents, _I_ invented Rock-n-roll! Angst? _Ha!_ Just one of the perks of being your own boss."

"Now, I'm going to win this case, and _then_ I'm going to slam dunk every one of those losers in the trunk of my car, and then we're all going for a nice, little trip down south, if you catch my drift."

He turned to leave, and just before he reached the door, he glanced back at Meg with a menace that was palpable, and said, "Just be glad I won't have _your_ nerdy little ass go down with them."


	13. 13

Meg ran the words of her closing argument in her head for what seemed like a hundred times. And every time, she felt distracted, either by the eloquent and impassioned words of her opponent giving his speech, or from the fact that that damned Mortality Report was still nowhere to be found.

She put on a brave face for the sake of Jennifer, who did likewise for her. Time was almost up, though. If Meg couldn't convince the jury, even after her last chance to do so, here and now, then the game was up. And in this court, there was no such thing as appeal.

Meg was just listening to the Devil go into a speech about the death of Americana, and how it pertained to the case, when her cell phone buzzed.

She discreetly answered it and was surprised to hear Death on the other end. She could also hear what sounded like police and paramedic sirens whooping in the background.

"Death," Meg whispered softly. "I can't talk right now. It's closing arguments. It's my last chance. What is it?"

"Your last chance," Death said simply. "You, uh, didn't forget about that report, did ya?"

"No. But I couldn't find it anywhere. Why?"

"Because you may have been given a last trump card to play, kid. You'll never guess where I am. Irony Town. Population: 1. I'm at an accident site. Looks like 'Ol Ragg's chauffeur just bit the big one. He totaled the limo in a DUI. His boss is being questioned down at the station."

"Okay. But how does that help me?"

"You told me that you went through his house, right?"

"Yeah."

"Did you ever check his office?"

Meg gave a morose sigh. "I _saw_ his office when he interviewed me that day. There was nothing there that I could see." She could see the Devil finishing up. "Look, I'll talk to you after the trial. Hopefully, to say I won."

"Alright. I'll see ya later."

Both hung up, and Meg went to the front of the courtroom after the Devil sat down. She turned to face the people there, speech in her mind, and froze.

Not out of stage fright, though she did have butterflies in the stomach on her way to the front. She froze because she didn't think she could do it. It felt too…premature.

To her, giving a closing argument, at that moment, meant that she considered herself finished, done with the case. It signaled to her clients that she did everything she could to get them freed. But she knew in her heart and soul that that was not the case. She still had things she could do, even if she didn't have much time to do them.

In truth, she never did give Ragg's office a thorough going over, simply because he was there that day with her, just as she told Death. But what if he _did_ hide it there? This was for Jennifer's soul. In good conscience, she couldn't rest until every single possibility was exhausted, regardless of whether or not Meg felt foolish going over the same ground twice.

The judge, not seeing the inner turmoil roiling through Meg, asked her if she were going to give closing arguments, or not.

Meg ignored him and stared at Jennifer and the others, even the old man. Trust was the issue. It always was.

Then a thought struck her like a thunderbolt to the spine. She was closer to the report than she ever knew and all she had to do was stop and think. It was right under her nose. Or rather, _over_ it.

Meg laughed out loud, and it made the court, as a whole, feel awkward. She made up her mind, turned to face the judge's bench and raised her hand in both an attention-getting and placating manner.

"Your Honor, at this time, I would like to request an emergency personal recess," she said formally.

"What the _me_?" The Devil yelled, glaring at Meg. The judge didn't look any happier at her, and it became a toss-up in her mind as to who was the scarier.

Still, she maintained. "Please, Your Honor. It is _crucial_ that I be someplace today. I would like to request an emergency personal recess."

"Your Honor," the Devil exclaimed from his bench. "It's bad enough that this so-called lawyer is time-wastingly incompetent, but do we have to add that she's a bad liar, too? This is obviously a delay tactic on her part."

The judge considered that seriously, and then turned to Meg, for want of an explanation.

"Well, Miss Griffin?" he asked sternly. " _Is_ this some sort of delay tactic to postpone the verdict until the next day?"

"Next day?" Meg asked back, momentarily befuddled. She hadn't thought about disappearing _that_ long during the recess, just long enough to check out her theory. After that, if she was wrong, she would get back up to the front of the courtroom and _sing_ her closing arguments to appease the jury, if need be.

She debated to herself on her next course of action. If she said that she wanted to leave until tomorrow, she ran the risk that that would be too long a wait for her, and the judge wouldn't allow it. If she said that she would come back later the _same day_ , it might please the judge enough to allow that.

Putting on her most innocent face, Meg said to him, "It's nothing that serious, Your Honor. I just need to, uh, buy some new videotape at the store. There's a _Touched By An Angel_ Marathon coming on, and don't want to miss it. I'll be back here in a few hours, in time to wrap this case up. Honest."

The judge considered her words, grumbling a bit under his breath as he thought. Meg held her trusting smile, but her eye twitched in apprehension. The judge was deliberating this way too long for her liking.

At last, the judge said, "Very well. After all the commotion earlier and then summoning you two to my chambers, the court should have a chance to settle down from all of that. Recess is granted. We will reconvene in two hours." He banged his gavel to close the matter.

Meg skipped back to her bench and began packing her attaché in a hurry. Jennifer was visibly confused by the turn of events, seeing everybody standing up and gathering to leave all of the sudden.

"Meg?" she asked pensively. "What's going on? Is the trial over? Did we win?"

"No," Meg answered, perhaps too quickly. "I mean…I mean, no, the trial's not over yet. There's still one thing I have to do first, and I hope this'll work." She grabbed her case and fast-walked up the aisle, calling back to her, "Wish me luck!"

Jennifer, taken aback by the unexpected and frenetic activity, said simply to Meg's receding back, "Good luck."

Unbeknownst to anyone present, the Devil made a call on his cell phone…

* * *

 

Meg woke with a start. She didn't have much time before she had to get back. She changed out of her courtroom clothes and into her more familiar ones. Freshened up in the bathroom quietly and then crept down the stairs.

It was early yet and everyone was still asleep throughout the house, but that would change soon. This was still a school day, and the morning routine would be reenacted yet again upon their awakening, except this time, Meg would simply have beaten them to the punch.

Meg grabbed a bite from the refrigerator and then headed for the front door. After carefully opening and then closing it again, she still faced the door and took a bracing gulp of air to help her stay focused and to give her fortitude. If she was right about where the report was hidden, she could blow the case wide open. The plans of Evil would be foiled big-time, at least for a while.

But the seesaw battle between Good and Evil didn't concern Meg as much as the look on Jennifer's face when she told her that she was free and innocent. Meg knew that that would be worth more than gold itself.

Turning from the door, she was about to walk in the direction of where she parked on the curb, when her vision was filled with sight of textured black.

A man wearing a combination of ski mask, jacket, pants and boots, all black, reached out to grab Meg by the shoulders. Meg gave a panicked squeak, ducked at the last second, and ran out from under his open arms.

Meg's mind raced. She had no idea who that man was or why he was sneaking around the outside of the house. He did look familiar to her, however, and in spite of her fright, she recalled the night those burglars broke into the house. Although they were eventually apprehended, along with herself, for giving in to her rape fantasy and forcing herself on them, the man behind her now didn't seem to be as friendly as her erstwhile capturers.

She spared a glance to see if he was following, and he was, though at a somewhat slower pace than she, almost as if he knew something she didn't. Or knew _someone_.

Meg slammed into another body she didn't expect and the surprise shocked her into freezing where she stood while she gathered her wits again.

This man, similarly dressed, also reached out to grab her by the shoulders, and succeeded, turning her around violently so that she now stood with her back to him. He brought one of his large arms around her neck and held her in a chokehold.

Meg fought the terror that threatened to cloud her reason and judgment. So far, all the man was doing was restraining her, albeit rather tightly, but that could change. She needed an out. Some kind of vulnerability she could exploit.

Meg noticed after squirming for a moment, that her arms were pinned to her sides by the man's other arm, but they were free enough to just put behind her. She had an idea, but it would have to be done accurately the very first time, or else the man would know it was coming and move.

She mentally pictured where his crotch would be, felt for it as she was held to him, and picked her moment. Now.

Meg reached behind, palmed his crotch, and upon satisfaction of finding it, hooked her fingers into his groin hard. _Very_ hard.

The man released her with a bellow and Meg flew out of his grasp, only to run back into the first man, who was waiting with a white cloth that even from Meg's closing distance, smelled very strong.

He learned what a wildcat this girl was and planned accordingly. As she was grabbed, he jacked one of her arms into a painful chicken wing, as he brought the other arm with the chloroform-soaked rag around, and held it hard against her face.

Between the exertion of trying to evade her captors and the pain of the arm folded up against her back that way, Meg began huffing and puffing into the rag. She knew she should hold her breath, but it was hard to catch, and her body didn't want to argue the point.

Soon, sooner than she thought possible, her eyelids grew heavy with sleep, and her legs wobble on their own. What started as loud, muffled protestations, soon turned into low-toned, incoherent mumbling, as all of her muscles slackened and she drooped in her captor's embrace, unconscious.

He let her collapse on the morning cold ground as he signaled an anonymous looking black van that was parked across the street.

The partner of the one who finally caught Meg, limped a little back to where the two were. When he reached her, he swore and gave her insensate body a harsh kick in anger.

With a chuckle, his successful partner grabbed her up under her arms, while the angry one grabbed her by the knees, and as one, they carried her quickly to the open rear doors of the van. Once the doors closed, the van sped out of Spooner Street.

* * *

 

The sounds of wailing could be heard coming from the jacket pocket of Mr. Scratch as he relaxed back in Hell. He was in one of his more favorite haunts, a cozy, little jazz café called _Sizzles_.

Though it distracted him from listening to the stage act, a trio of succubae who called themselves, The Fallen Angels, he decided to answer.

"Good news, I trust?" he asked, while tapping his hand in time to the singers.

"Very good news," Ragg said on the other end. "Those guys you pointed out to me did their job great. Meg's on her way to a _very_ violent end, and those souls are as good as in my hands already. Thanks to you, old buddy."

"Ah, it was nothing at all. Remember, your happiness is what I'm all about. Say, I'm cooling out at this club I like to go to sometimes. How about, when all of this nonsense is taken care of, I bring you by for a drink."

"Well, that sounds mighty nice of you. But I don't want to impose."

"Nonsense," the Devil said with an anticipatory smile on his lips. "It's all on me. I'll talk to you soon."

He hung up and leaned back in the comfortable chair of his reserved V.I.P. area. Things were, apart from a complication or two, proceeding apace.

The girls were finishing up their song as the audience clapped quietly in appreciation. They were not a bad group. He figured he could call them over sometime for a _personal_ performance.

* * *

 

The sky was growing dim with dark clouds and low thunder, as the black van flew along the highway, heading out of town. In the back, Meg, still unconscious, laid prone on the dirty, tool-strewn floor, directly behind the black-clad driver's and the front passenger seat.

Behind her, gathered further in the back towards the rear doors sat the three other kidnappers. Although they accosted an innocent young woman in front of her very house, they sat with an ease that came from years of camaraderie.

"So we all know the plan, same as before," the one who chloroformed Meg with the rag said. "We drive to the woods outside of town, take turns raping Four-eyes here, kill her, and dump her body in the creek." Turning to address one of the men, he said further. "Hey, I been meaning to ask you before the job, what's in the bag?"

The one who failed to catch Meg sat protectively by a full grocery bag. "Oh, well, this is some stuff for my little girl's birthday later today," he said. "I want it to be special, so I told my wife that I would be doing the shopping this time. I got some balloons, cake mix, chocolate frosting, fireworks, a pinata and some rope to hang it on. It'll be great."

"That's so sweet. She's a lucky girl," said the one who opened the doors for them, after the attack. "So, after we rape and kill this one, could we come over for some cake?"

"Gentlemen, I would be honored if you could come over. I insist," Bag Man said with mock-gentility.

The driver, overhearing the conversation, exclaimed jokingly, "Well, as long as you insist!" Then added, "Did you guys know that chocolate is considered an aphrodisiac?"

Bag Man brightened at that. "Yeah? Well, in that case, I'll give my wife a whole container of frosting for _after_ the party."

A chorus of salacious chuckling rang around the van's interior.

"Yep. Married for all of ten years," Bag Man told the men upon wistful recollection. "My wife's one of a kind." He then pointed at Meg, giving her no more thought than if she were a sack of potatoes. "You guys wanna start on her when we get there, or should I?"

Door Man shrugged with equal dispassion. "Like it matters. Though we normally get 'em better looking than her."

"Doesn't matter to me," Rag Man said indifferently. "I've been in prison for six years. I won't know the difference."

That sparked another chuckle throughout the van. However, not everyone inside laughed. Astral Meg stood over her prone form, unseen by her attackers, and looking quite pissed.

From her vantage point behind the driver's seat, she could see the highway signs that told her that she was probably on her way to Maine, if her fellow passengers weren't going to commit heinous crimes on her person before she ever got there.

All of their pleasant small talk, so far, didn't impress her. They were obviously heartless killers and she needed to get out of there while she still had time. _'This kidnapping could not have happened at a worst time,'_ she fretted in that the Devil and Ragg had more than a hand in this.

The back of the van was musty with the pong of old motor oil, rust, beer, faded chloroform, and the fear-formed tears, sweat and blood of former reluctant passengers. To Meg, it stank just as bad as that homeless man she had to…

_Possess!_

"We're almost there, guys," Wheel Man called out. "Another mile or two."

Meg decided it was time to cut this trip short. She took a breath that her soul didn't need to brace herself for the plunge, picked for her first victim the one who knocked her out, and entered him.

Rag Man felt the slightest shudder, like a cascading tingle throughout his body. He simply dismissed it as his body telling him that he had to go to the bathroom. He would have plenty of time for that while his partners in crime took their time with Meg.

But the subject of his fleeting thought had successfully rested in his body, and, a moment later, had taken control of him enough that he couldn't tell where she left off and he began. His hand slowly tightened into a hidden fist.

Bag Man had told a joke in that space of time, and was laughing to himself. So the punch that connected to his mouth, with tooth-jarring solidity, was an utter surprise to him and Door Man.

"Hey, man! The joke wasn't _that_ bad!" Door Man cried out as Bag Man fell back and banged his already ringing head against the side of the van. Hard.

His vision blurred like an old film caught in a projector, as he scrambled unsteadily back to his feet, ready for Round Two.

Blood and spittle flowed from his mouth as he spat out a vicious curse at Rag Man, who just sat where he was and smiled insipidly.

"Just for that, no ice cream for you, and I had Cookies and Cream, man," he said, though it almost was indecipherable due to his ruined mouth.

With speed born of adrenaline, anger, and pain, he sped a right hook into his assailant that rocked Rag Man almost off his bench.

Righting himself and looking at Bag Man with murder in his one good, non-swollen eye, Meg made Rag Man growl, "I _like_ Cookies and Cream." Then she launched him at Bag Man.

Door Man, meanwhile was doing everything he could to be peacekeeper. From reason, to threats, to rebuffed restraint that he gave to one or the other, all of it was ignored in the pursuit the two erstwhile friends trying to beat the ever loving piss out of each other.

Meg hadn't been in too many fights in her life, but in the few she _did_ engage in, she was a terror. Bag Man, to his credit, held his own, but it was like fighting a wild, unsupervised animal.

She had to move fast to incapacitate the others before they reached their destination. The two she got to fight might hate each other in the long run, but they'd shelve their animosity to still deal with her, and that was not an option.

In the space of a time granted during a brief grapple, Meg made Rag Man do a quick glance over at Door Man to see what he was doing. Door Man had since gave up trying to stand between them, and was sitting there watching them duel, with a fight program in one hand and a beer in the other.

Meg made her move. She drew herself out of her puppet and ran into Door Man, catching him completely unaware.

Wheel Man glanced up to see through the rear view mirror and asked tensely, "Hey, what's going on back there? Did that girl wake up, or something?"

Door Man, who was seated next to the sleeping Meg, said slyly, "Sort of." He then stood up, stepped over her, and punched Wheel Man squarely in the back of his ski masked head.

The punch, which struck the softer base of the skull, nearly stunned the driver, and while he nodded off incoherently for a moment, the van swerved and powered into a wooded path off the highway.

Recovering and clearly angry at the attack, Wheel Man turned around in his seat, unthinkingly, to fight back. Cursing, he swung with a free hand at Door Man, who easily ducked away from him.

Reason prevailed and Wheel Man was forced to keep his eyes back on the road. When he did, he screamed.

To his horror, the view became a maelstrom of tree branches and underbrush, as the van haphazardly flew down a slope made slippery with dead leaves and dew.

Wheel Man gave it every bit of his years of experience driving everything from get-away cars to go-carts, but gravity made the van its plaything, as it picked up more speed and even less control. Having Door Man laughing in his ear, like a man possessed, which incidentally was the case, didn't help matters.

Amazingly, the two men in the back were still duking it out when the van finally leveled off in a clearing. Wheel Man spun the van out, putting both feet on the brake pedal, when the van skidded into the side of a half-rotted log that laid on the ground like a camouflaged speed bump, which was strong enough, with the vehicle's current high speed, to flip it into a bad roll-out.

The van's occupants tumbled and bounced off the sides of the interior like action figures in a blender. Astral Meg, however, not wanting her body damaged, had Door Man hold her tight, to act as a buffer against bad knocks.

At last, the van rolled to a smoking rest right side up against a large tree, which gave it a nasty dent on the side that collided with it. Then, all was still.

In a few minutes' time, the birds, which were spooked out of the area by the van's passage, returned and sang songs of warning and concern, which, to anyone listening, still sounded lovely.

The sound of metal clacking against metal could be heard from the rear of the stricken van. The handle of one of the rear doors moved slightly, and then fell off. The doors then swung free on their own accord when the lock failed.

Meg stepped out cautiously, yawned, and then walked a few paces from the wreck. She filled her lungs with the cool, wet air of the forest and turned around to look at the interior of the van and the people therein.

No one stirred within. They were all unconscious and resting in various poses, some not comfortable to a conscious body. Meg noticed a thin line, like spider web, span from one side of her vision.

Taking her glasses off, she could see that even she was not untouched by the crash. But slightly cracked glasses wouldn't deter her. They were still functional enough to see by, and she still had things to do.

She ran over to the front of the vehicle and opened the driver's side door. Pushing Wheel Man over, Meg searched until she found the hood release lever and pulled it.

The hood popped itself unlocked and Meg went to it to open it up. The engine didn't look too bad, upon inspection, however the radiator was cracked and was leaking coolant into the grass.

Meg sighed. She was going to need to get this heap back onto the highway and break a few speed records getting back into town. But first, she had to get rid of some dead weight.

She managed to pull and drag the killers out of the van and lay them side-by-side a few yards away from the vehicle. It was tough doing, but it was done. Taking a breather, Meg looked down at them, helpless and out cold, and thought back to what could have happened had she not take control of the situation.

"Those bastards were going to kill me," Meg thought aloud, vehemently. She knew that she had to get the van started and carefully drive back up the slope and into the highway again, but all that ran through her mind was the fact that she almost died by their grubby, bloodstained hands.

"Son of a bitch must pay," she said to herself, and got down to work.

It was a long while before the four men gradually began to wake up again, albeit painfully. Headaches and bruises were the order of the day.

Door Man would be the first to notice it. He woke to find himself facing a strong, slender tree. He tried to stand up and noticed further that he couldn't. He was on his knees. Upon even further analysis in keeping with his rising awareness, he noticed that he was hugging the tree in question and, when attempting to let go, couldn't, because his wrists were effectively bound.

"Hey!" he cried out to any and all who might hear him. "Hey, guys? What's going on? I can't get up."

"Yeah," Rag Man chimed in. "I know. We _all_ can't." He, too, was similarly positioned against a similar tree.

"Can you move your arms?" asked Bag Man.

"No," Rag Man surly answered. "But I think we were just rolled. Look."

On the ground in a small pile nearby, four wallets lay. Even from where they were, they could see that all the money was taken from them. Beside them were four pairs of boots with the laces gone.

Also on the ground and leading away from the crash site, were fresh tire tracks and a trail of leaking fluid that ran back towards the treacherous slope that brought them here in the first place.

But the most alarming thing discovered was that when they managed to turn their heads to see these things, they also saw that they weren't wearing their pants or underwear. Moreover, a strange brown paste was smeared across their buttocks.

"I don't believe this," Wheel Man said incredulously. "That little bitch tied us up with our boot laces and took our money and our van, man. And then took our pants? This is too much."

"Yeah," Bag Man said, trying to free himself again and failing to get enough leverage to succeed. "And what is that brown stuff on our butts? Looks like that time my daughter crapped herself and I forgot to change her."

Door Man thought he knew and said, "It smells like…chocolate?"

It was then that they all heard a noise, a heavy rustling through the underbrush a few yards away from the quartet. And a heavier, bestial breathing accompanied it.

Their collective hearts leapt up into their collective throats, as the terrifying sight of a fully-grown male bear made it way closer and closer to where they were.

All pretenses at being hardened, professional criminals went out the window as they all pulled, tugged and squirmed in a panic against their bonds, which only tightened more in their struggles. And alerted the bear more to their presence.

The bear snuffed and sniffed in the direction of their derrieres, and as the men whimpered in earnest fear, Bag Man noticed one last thing. On the ground, between his knees, was a small Post-it note with a question hastily scrawled.

"Question: Do you think bears consider chocolate an aphrodisiac, _too_?" he read aloud.

If he had an answer, smart-assed or not, he kept it to himself, as he and his other cohorts screamed to no one in particular, as the bear reared up to his full animal height, its fangs bared and its rutting bellow echoing in the morning mists.

The van shuddered and leaked on its way back to Quahog city limits.

Meg drove like a madwoman and was silently thankful to escape from those men and to not attract the attention of highway patrol on her frantic way back.

She had the radio on and her pockets were bulging with lifted cash. She had to hold on to some of it when her pants had no more room, clutching dollar bills between the rim of the steering wheel and her hands.

Hopefully, when all was said and done, she would spend this money in honor of those sick bastards who were probably some lucky carnivore's hearty breakfast by now, if the chocolate frosting she used had anything to do with it.

In a dark place in Meg's mind, that ultimately proved to be far more dangerous than the kidnappers ever though possible, she reasoned, with an even more dangerous smile, that in some way, they did do everything according to plan. There _was_ going to be a rape, of sorts, and a killing. They just didn't get the _victim_ right.

' _Oh, well,'_ she thought, as she entered town at last. _'The Devil_ is _in the details.'_


	14. 14

Meg drove downtown, weaving through the mid-morning commutes. The van sputtered and sometimes stalled in traffic, but she managed to coax it back to life and continued on, as the day grew cloudier.

Meg didn't know how long Ragg would be with the police, but she was thankful for the diversion, all the same. Just then, a sound, like one a radio's speakers would make if they were flubbing out, squawked in the rear of the van. Meg turned down the car radio and glanced back at the sound while she drove, wondering what that was.

"Brother Grim to Big Bag Wolf," came the static-ridden voice. "Come in."

Meg was perplexed at first, but when she stopped at a red light, she found time enough to look over into the back of the van.

On the floor, among the other scattered effects of the erstwhile kidnappers, was one of the men's walkie-talkies. Meg figured that it must have been left on by one of them to talk to either Ragg or the Devil.

"Brother Grim to Big Bad Wolf. Come in," the message repeated, and by the time the light went green again, she heartbrokenly knew whose voice she was listening to. The butterflies returned to her belly with a vengeance.

She knew he'd get free of the police soon enough, but she didn't think it would have been _this_ soon. She wasted too much time on those killers, and gave Ragg the time he needed to return to his place of business.

"Big Bag Wolf, come in," Ragg said. "What's your location? Did you kill her? Over."

Meg ignored the voice and kept her mind on both driving and what she was going to have to do to get in the building.

She could already see the landmark buildings that indicated that she was almost there, and so, to ease her nervousness, she flippantly said to herself, as if in reply to his summons, "Yeah, she's toast. We're on our way to Massachusetts. One of the guys just proposed to me and I said yes. We'll send you a postcard. Bye-bye, now."

By the time Meg reached the office building's block, Ragg had stopped calling. She slowed down as she reached the company parking lot, preparing to flash her ID to the guard stationed there, when she saw something through the van's cracked and tinted windshield that was both curious and disturbing.

Milling about outside the building was a cluster of security guards. From what she could see, it looked like they were waiting for someone.

"Uh-oh," Meg said under her breath, as she thought about what this could mean. Either the guards were all outside to have a smoke break, or they were gathering for an action of some sort. One that involved security, guarding access to someplace, and her.

And if they were summoned by Ragg to guard the building against her arrival, then it stood to reason that _all_ the guards probably had standing orders to detain and/or contain her if she tried to get in. Even the guard in the parking lot.

So, without another thought, she accelerated back into the street and drove by the men and the building. No guard gave the van a second look as she drove past them. As she reached the intersection, Meg looked around hastily. Downtown was not the sort of place where one casually took in the sights, unless one was on foot.

Since she was the first vehicle at the stoplight, she could see up and down the right and left side streets, and it was there, up the right side, that she found it.

A parking space lay abandoned around the corner of the park that stood across the street from the office building. She turned and parked the heap without incident and put money in the meter.

She was parked a few cars down from the corner, so she would have to walk to it to see across the street at the guards there. When she furtively arrived at the spot and looked out, she unwisely froze out in the open, in a panic at what she saw.

Coming out of the building, wearing such an anxious and angry expression, that even Meg could see it from where _she_ was, was Ragg. He stopped to address his troops, although Meg couldn't quite hear what was being said.

But when the man began gesturing at the cardinal points of the compass, and small teams from the group broke off to search in those directions, Meg ran back to the safety of the van.

Although no one could see inside the van, thanks to its tinted windows, Meg hunkered down in the driver's seat anyway, out of fear. Already, she could see, just over the steering wheel, one of the teams moving up the street, checking under parked cars for her.

Praying that the opaqueness of the windows were high enough, Meg laid down, slipped under the dashboard, and squeezed into the leg space underneath.

She held her breath and stood as still as the grave when she heard, at first, two pairs of shoes from the closest team walk to the van, and then more pairs run and then stop to join them.

She could hear them leaning against the doors to look under the vehicle and converse amongst themselves. Then she heard Ragg's voice among them and she willed herself to be unnoticed.

"She's around here somewhere," Ragg postulated to the others. "Some of you go back and check inside the building in case she already doubled back. The rest of you, with me. We'll search the park and the buildings around here in case she plans to slip by us."

The group obeyed and split up, leaving Meg to breathe, and soon after, to ponder after her close shave, how to get inside. She got up from her hiding spot and stepped gingerly into the rear of the van, being careful not to make noise while she entered.

Peering out of one the small windows set in the rear doors, she saw Ragg and his team head further up the street and around the corner. She was alone for now.

She turned from the window and ran half-baked ideas in her head, pacing around in the dark, cramped space.

Then her foot kicked over the shopping bag that was left behind, spilling its festive contents onto the metal floor. She had used the chocolate frosting earlier, but put everything else back in the bag, because she didn't see a use for them. Now that she stopped and stared at the items on the floor, an idea formed in her brain, and she liked the way it sang to her.

Ragg crossed the street with his team from the park in frustration. It was bad enough that his crack killer-kidnappers hadn't answered his call, but because they didn't, there was every reason to believe that Meg was on the loose somewhere. The Devil had assured him that even if she, by some miracle, eluded the kidnappers, she couldn't do whatever it was she finagled a recess for, in time.

As he listened to the other teams that gathered by the front doors tell him that they found no one, Ragg cocked his head towards the park. He could hear something.

Telling the others to be quiet, he listened again. A popping sound, faint, but sharp enough, was coming from the park, or more specifically, _by_ the park.

"Come on," he ordered. The whole group ran across the street and around the corner, and saw the unexpected.

A battered, black van became a noisy, eye-catching parade float, of sorts.

Sparklers were spitting light and hissing as they were held up in dark, rolled-up windows. Whiz-bangs were living up to their name, as they shot forth from under the van, smoking up the street around it.

They ran over to the van's open rear doors, careful not to get in the way of the fireworks that launched out from there in a cacophony, into the darkening sky.

Exiting behind them from the driver's side, using the fireworks' noise, smoke and colored lights, and even the sky's overcast as cover, Meg snuck, from car to car, back to the corner.

After a fast check to watch for guards and finding none, she ran pell-mell for the front doors.

Stepping into the lobby, she saw the security kiosk and was about to make a run past it for the elevators at the rear corridor, when she recognition made her stop.

Manning the kiosk was the old guard that she met when she first came to the building lo those many days ago. Her mind immediately registered him as no threat, but more importantly, she over and gave him a big kiss on his wizened cheek.

The old guard reared back in happy surprise. "Whoa! What was that for, young missy?"

"Because you are a genius," Meg said. "And you get paid not nearly enough for what you do."

"That's true," he agreed. "But what's this all about?"

"You said that people coming out of the building could sometimes see a light on the roof, even though they cut the power to the spotlight up there, right?"

"That's right."

"Then that's where it is," Meg told herself, triumph glowing from every pore.

Pointing to the elevators behind him, she asked the guard, "Do any of them go to the roof?"

"The elevators? Nah," he said. "None of them can take you directly to the roof, but if you get off at the last floor, there's an old maintenance stairway that _leads_ to the roof."

Meg looked up in thought, trying to picture what this stairway would look like. She decided not to waste time. She would see it when she saw it.

She thanked the guard, gave him another kiss on the cheek, and jogged over to one of the elevators whose light indicated that it was already on its way down.

When the elevator doors opened, her smile turned into fearful dismay, as she looked in the car, and saw that it was full of security guards.

The smoke was beginning to clear, the sparklers were fizzing out, and the whiz-bangs sputtered into silence, as Ragg and the other managed to get closer to the van.

After the initial fireworks had died down, he and the guards peered into the slightly smoky rear and saw a curious thing. A pink and white pinata stood in the middle of the doorway, with its back to them.

A lit M-80 was sticking out from between its butt cheeks, and on its cheeks, written in marker, were the words, _"Kiss It!"_

Ragg and his men managed to just jump out of the way before the explosive went off with a boom loud enough to set off every car alarm on the block, showering them in burning candy and papier-mâché.

Meg ran back to the lobby and stopped near the security kiosk again. Looking back, she could see that the guards didn't give chase, but simply made a call on their walkie-talkies and strolled purposefully out of the elevator towards her.

She was about to cut her losses and run out the door, when the other guards burst in, and then Ragg, as though he were the conquering king he believed himself to be, came in and closed the doors behind him, smiling darkly.

"Oh, you led me on a merry chase, little girl," Ragg said with a purr. "But now it's time for the fun and games to end."

He regarded his guards with an indulgent grin. "Gentlemen, you may beat this girl within an inch of her life. And then you may take that inch, too."

The guards, as one, with the exception of the old one in the kiosk, pulled out their nightsticks, and moved in on Meg with slow, deliberate menace.

She couldn't believe she was about to be beaten to death by an army of unexpectedly homicidal rent-a-cops. As she glanced around to see which guards were the closest to her, and thus, the greatest threat, she saw a PA microphone sitting on top of the kiosk.

Looking around again, she saw the park from the lobby's wide windows. Impossibly, inspiration hit her.

She turned to the old guard and asked, as though her life was _not_ about to end bloodily, "Does the PA system in this building have speakers on the outside?"

The old guard glanced to the windows, thought, then said, "Yeah. Why?"

"Can I use it?" she asked, grabbing the mic.

The old man thought it odd, especially under the circumstances, but said, "Sure, little missy, but who are you gonna call?"

Meg gave the man a sure smile and said, "Back-up."

Pressing the send button, Meg took a deep breath as the guards and Ragg closed in on her, and then gave the loudest series of birdcalls she ever produced, running the entire catalogue of local bird species in her mind to find the closest and more abundant flocks in the area.

Meg chirped and whistled a blue streak, leaning into the microphone to perform like a virtuoso jazz flautist. Ragg, witnessing this strange display, actually laughed at her apparent folly, and gestured the guards to hold off their advance for the moment.

"What is this?" he asked her incredulously. "The Gong Show? What's next, Stupid Human Tricks?"

Meg finally stopped her calls and looked back at Ragg, out of breath and defiant. She didn't really think it could work; the long shot for it would have been astronomical.

Ragg raised his hand to signal the march to her doom again, when the already overcast daylight suddenly grew darker still.

He heard the sound of something hitting the windows behind him with quick, organic thuds. Turning, Ragg, and soon the security guards, all stood dumbfounded as, in groups of ten and fifteen, small and medium-sized birds began flying and caroming into the glass, causing it to vibrate and shimmy violently.

The dim daylight from the windows was suddenly snuffed out under a frighteningly dark blanket of muscle, claws and wings as over a hundred local birds flew, hovered, attempted to climb and inevitably bashed their bodies against the lobby windows.

Ragg backed away as the windows shook in protest to the growing flocks, rattling in their frames until, at long last, they can hold them out no longer and they shattered inward.

Glass fragments flowed in their birds' frenzied wake like ice in an arctic storm. Outside, the weather worsened, and a strong wind, the prelude to a local storm front, blew into the lobby through the ruined windows.

This combination of things made the already skittish avians, even more confused and scared. Clouds of birds flapped against the walls, the kiosk, the doors, each other, and anybody standing in their panicked way, blotting out the interior lighting completely in a storm of feathers and a riot of disharmonious birdsong.

Meg crouched down and used the maelstrom of birds as cover as she ran back to the elevators.

As the birds' circled, swooped, and crowded in, space became non-existent, and in their collective, claustrophobic terror, they simultaneously defecated everywhere they flapped. Ragg's suit and the guards' uniforms were ruined under the gastro-intestinal onslaught of half-digested insects and liquid fecal matter.

Meg, still out of breath, but unsullied and unharmed, stepped into the waiting car, then turned to watch the last of the special live performance of Alfred Hitchcock's _The Birds_ ,before the doors closed and she finally ascended.

* * *

 

"She's going to be late," the judge said to no one in particular. The Devil, however, heard him loud and clear.

"Well, Your Honor," he said. "It's like I always said. You get what you pay for. And it seems quite obvious that the defendants went bargain basement. Still, to be fair, we'll wait until time's up, and then I'll crush her defense, once and for all."

"We'll see, prosecutor," said the judge as he watched the Devil's infernal legal assistants work around their lord, like ants tending to their queen. Personally, he didn't need them at all, the judge knew, but appearance was everything, and looking like you had a crack team of legal eagles, or maybe in their case, culture vultures, would make the other team all the more intimidated and less prone to success.

The judge then looked at the other team seated in their bench, already dead, but looking even more morose, more condemned than before. The only thread of hope they had left hadn't returned yet, and the judge had long since guessed that her absence had everything to do with trying to win the case, and less to do with some sappy TV tearjerker.

He had to smile a little at Meg's bold play at using recess to buy more time. Secretly, he liked her spunk and resolve, despite her inexperience, and he hoped, deep down as an angel and a judge, that she'd beat that ol' Devil down.

"We'll see," the judge said again, more to himself, this time.

* * *

 

The elevator had reached the uppermost floor, and during the quiet, mercifully uneventful trip, Meg had time to think. About many things.

She thought about how came from such a long way to be where she is now. She never thought in a million years that she ever be some thing as prestigious and important as a lawyer. She heard the rap about lawyers being rapacious, money-hungry, soulless opportunist who cared little about their client and even less about their morals.

But after having somebody reach out and ask for her help, even from beyond the grave, it changed her. It gave her purpose, focus, and armor against the attacks that plagued her for so long. She took so many chances, gambled with her life so much and so quickly now, that it felt like it was all a dream to her. She cheated Death as much as she needed his help at times, an she found her new life, for lack of a better word, exhilarating.

She also hoped, for all of her risk-taking, that she wasn't wrong about this hunch. Or that the old man wasn't just rambling for want of company, when he told her about the roof. This was for all the marbles.

The door opened and Meg stepped into a dusty, long-forgotten floor. It looked like the interior of an abandoned warehouse. Windows were caked with grime and cobwebs, and paint was peeling from both the ceiling and the walls, the falling pieces were so numerous, they almost layered the floor. Paint and primer cans stood in dusty stacks in corners alongside defunct fluorescent light fixtures that were never installed.

Meg looked about in the gloom of the place for the stairway, but it wasn't seen. However, walking farther into the disused corridor, she could see that it bent around the corner to extend its length a few more yards before terminating at a paint can piled dead-end.

Curiosity prompted her to walk its length, and just before she arrived at the dead-end, she spotted an old wooden door, a holdover from the building's very early days, on one side of the hall. The doorknob was missing, and when Meg trying to push it open experimentally, it held.

Frustrated, she looked around the floor near her for the errant knob. There was only debris and dust.

With no other choice open to her, Meg walked across the hallway from the stubborn door, made her stance, blew out a breath, and ran at the door full tilt.

Meg bounced off the door and favored her pained shoulder, but when she struck, she heard the door crack from where the lock's bolt was held in place. It was old. Old enough.

Meg went back to her starting place again, planting her feet squarely. She took off again, yelling to offset the coming pain and to focus her strength against the aged door.

With a bang, the door flew loose, its lock coming apart in pieces and hitting the dirty floor with metallic clunks. The rest of the door swung free in a squeal of rusted hinges, as Meg's momentum had her running into something angular, cold and hard.

Straightening her glasses, she looked up to see an ancient, but still sturdy staircase winding up into the dark. A single window set in one of its landings above provided Meg with a little light, which intensified only briefly from the occasional lightning flash.

"This must be it," she said to herself to keep the butterflies in her guts down, as she started walking slowly, cautiously upward.

It was when she was halfway up the length of the staircase, that she heard the sounds. Heavy stomps, like from large workers' boots, could be heard tramping downward. Coming to her.

They were too close to her, which meant that whoever was coming was close enough to hear her, so she put running back down the stairs out of her head. She backed up against the corner of the landing she was on, heart hammering and wondering who the hell was already up here.

Doctors Raymond Stanz and Egon Spengler marched down the stairs before her, looking weary, their uniforms scorched and splattered with ectoplasm that seemed to glow faintly in the lightning flashes outside. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"What are you guys doing here?" Meg asked, thankful it wasn't a guard, or worse, Ragg.

Ray regarded her, and said, while slightly out of breath, "We got a call to check out a disturbance up on the roof. Thought it was a normal haunting, but we were caught off guard. We handled it, though."

Meg was thunderstruck. Ghosts? The office building was haunted?

"Who was it? Gozer?" she asked expectantly.

"No, worse," Raymond said, turning stone-faced as the lightning strobed through the landing window again. "Nicholas Cage. They were filming the sequel to Ghost Rider. "

Meg gasped in shock as the two battle-hardened men walked past her. But just before she could restart her own journey, Egon wordlessly turned back and gave her a cursory scan with his PKE meter, which squealed and raised its arms in reaction to her. Egon lowered his hand-held sensor, gave Meg a mournful shake of his bespectacled head, and then joined his friend and partner downstairs.

Meg gulped, but then resumed her climb.

The secretaries had seen him in all manner of stress before, but when Ragg marched past them on his way to his office, they didn't know it could be pushed to such a limit.

He burst into the room, looking crazed, stinking and moist with guano, and covered haphazardly with feathers of various species of bird.

Ragg looked around the immaculate office for something. Something to use. Something to _kill_ with. Stationary was too small for his purposes, and it was just his luck that he left his gun at home when he had to be questioned by police earlier.

Meg had proven through sheer luck, guile and fortitude, to be, in his mind, the most dangerous woman on Earth, and if he wanted his rule on Earth to be complete and absolute, Megan Griffin must die.

"I _had_ to leave the gun at home," he fumed. Then his eyes spied something he hadn't thought to use but, under the circumstances, would have been perfect for the occasion.

He walked almost reverently towards his decorated wall, where his trophies hung. Where the two crossed rapiers proudly hung, sure and lethal.

Thankfully, this door was more cooperative than the first one, and upon reaching it, Meg opened it to see a stormy vista of the heavens.

The building was clearly one of the tallest in the city skyline, and as the leaden clouds moved along under the strong winds, it felt to Meg as though the roof and her were moving, like a ship at sea.

She stepped out and the roof was immense, a tar black field stretching hundreds of yards. Meg looked up at the building's sign proclaiming _Ragg Publishing_ , and almost succumb to vertigo.

Instead, she gingerly walked around, past proton-pack scorched ventilation shafts, satellite dishes, wiry weather sensors, skylights, and fire-fighting equipment.

She took another look at the turbulent skies and knew that she was late getting back to the trial. In all honesty, she wasn't too sure her closing argument would have swayed the jury, anyway. Hence, this last minute desperation play of hers.

She kept the image of Jennifer on her mind as she continued to look around. Then she decide that the best way to see all of the roof at once would be to come over to the edge and then look back.

She carefully did so, fighting the temptation to look over the edge. Just behind the titanic sign and to the side, was a large, rotund structure, canted on its side and rusted from disuse. Meg went over to it, and gave a thankful sigh. It was the old spotlight.

The long forgotten, weather-beaten spotlight stood off to one side of the wide roof, damaged and canted on its supports, rusted from long disuse. Its lens had a dusty layer of old black paint covering it, but where small holes had worn through its surface from a few years of exposure, a few thin rays of light from within escaped.

"The spotlight that shined, even when it had no power," Meg surmised in awe. This had to be it. The gamble was, ultimately, about to pay off.

She ran her fingers along its thick surface, trying to find places to dig them into to pull the paint off, but the layers were too thick and intact to do so without breaking nails or even the fingers themselves. Force would be needed.

Meg looked around where she was, but couldn't find anything loose and sharp enough to serve her. Then it hit her. By the roof entrance was the fire-fighting equipment she saw earlier.

Confident that she now knew where the spotlight was, Meg quickly jogged over to the equipment's zone. There, a frame that held a fire hose in a hefty coil with attendant plumbing, stood against the elements. A fire axe supported on a frame of its own, caught her attention.

"No time to be subtle," she figured, as she grabbed the axe and turned to run back to the spotlight.

The sound of a violent impact behind her made Meg turn to see that which she most wanted _not_ to. The roof entrance door was wrenched open with enough force to tear it half off its hinges and Ragg stumbled forward in his crashing momentum to almost make him fall.

Meg noted that the door wasn't especially barred or reinforced against opening; it could have been opened as easily as any other. But seeing who had broken through, and why he was angry enough to want to destroy the door, cleared things for her.

Ragg righted himself and stood seething as he kept hateful eyes on Meg, his body now coated with a layer of fine dust on top of the existing layers of droppings and feathers, his right hand, grasping the hilt of his collectable rapier as though to pour his vitriol into the blade to give it an even deadlier keen.

"I'll kill you, Griffin!" Ragg howled into the wind as he approached her without fanfare, eager to cut her down.

Meg, her guard up, brandished the axe, which made Ragg laugh in a giddying fashion.

"You're going to use an axe against my rapier? It's so light, it'll slice you into steak tartar before you raise that thing. I don't know how you managed to know about everything I've been planning, but I swear, you not going to stop me now," he said with iron certainty.

Meg backed away, keeping the axe up defensively, but she frowned. Time was almost up, if not already up. She couldn't waste time with Ragg, even if he had the upper hand in a fight.

The souls of the clients were more important.

"Dammit," she swore, and then ran to the spotlight like a bat out of hell.

* * *

 

The Devil smiled like the cat that ate the canary, as he said, almost musically, "She's late, Your Honor."

The prosecution sensed the judge's expression, and thought it delicious, as the judge said with a reluctant bite in his voice, "I understand."

Then he regarded the stricken defendants as they saw their one faint hope slip almost visually out of their hands.

"Since counsel has saw fit not to return from recess, I'm going to instruct jury to come to a decision now without closing argument. I'm truly sorry."

Jennifer found it curious that she didn't burst into tears. She figured that she was too scared or too numb to care.

She did, however, turn to hear the Devil say to the judge, "I wouldn't have worried, Your Honor. It was an open and shut case from the beginning. Defense was simply over her head, that's all."

"As a matter of fact," he added, his head slowly rising, as if sensing some expected stimuli. "I'm pretty sure that the next time she comes back up here, it'll be to stay."

* * *

 

Meg charged at the spotlight with the fire axe like a barbarian, yelling to focus her strength. Ragg had decided to walk to his prey. If she tried to backtrack and go for the stairwell, he was far enough behind her to intercept her easily. Best to take his time with this and savor it all.

The axe head crashed into the painted-over lens, shattering glass and layers of light-concealing pigment. Again and again, Meg cut away more of the lens, releasing an ethereal light that bathed the roof in brilliance.

She used the axe to sweep away the loose glass and black paint, then dropped the implement to reached carefully inside the spotlight.

She felt the touch of the divine warmly course through her hands, as she triumphantly lifted the glowing, supernaturally white Mortality Report from its earthly resting place. There, on the cover, was proudly writ in gold, _Heaven's Helpers Cult Members._

She knew she won this case now. Nothing could possibly touch her, as she held it protectively against her breast. But she also knew, with a bittersweet smile, how much time was spent since Ragg last said anything. Time was up, and he said nothing. He was close. Maybe _too_ close…

Her gasp was drowned out by a momentary thunderclap. The sword point took her breath away as it slid, almost without effort, through her back and out of her chest.

Meg could feel her punctured left lung and heart grow heavy with destruction and internal bleeding, and she slowly gazed at the blade, that extended so far from her body, that she gladly went into a disbelieving shock that it was her at all.

For so long, she had entertained thoughts of her own demise. The close calls from attacks, either perpetrated by the family, or because of their neglect.

At times, in those secret moments, she sometimes longed for it. The glittering razors that left their kiss on her arms, that, if too much pressure was applied, or if cut in the wrong place, could end her life in a red rush. Her sad flirtations with death. She almost laughed at the thought of Death being uncomfortably flattered by her attentions.

Then she vaguely felt Ragg's warm breath on the back of her neck, blowing gently, almost intimately, and wondered why he didn't pull the sword out of her, as her breathing became shallower and her vision tunneled. But as her legs finally buckled, and she slumped to the surface of the roof, the report still held close to her, and her body slipping free from the blade's length, she couldn't quite work up the concern any more.

Somewhere, across dimensions of matter, space and time, in a courtroom that was waiting for a jury's verdict, a girl sensed the end of a beloved friend. With a wail that rivaled the damned, because she couldn't feel any worse, Jennifer cried out, "Meg!"

All hubbub ceased in the courtroom, as though they, too, felt the immediate loss wash across the room.

The judge tensed as he, also, felt something was wrong, and sorrowfully watched Jennifer give up any semblance of control, as she wept sad, angry tears; red eyes burning holes through the Devil, as he sat unperturbed by her pain.

The judge turned to watch the Devil's reaction, and the Devil simply shrugged in response.

"I hereby declare a ten minute recess," the judge managed to say to the people through a tight throat. With a bang of his gavel, he stepped down and departed to his chambers.


	15. 15

Ragg stood over Meg in dark victory.

Her life's blood drained out onto the asphalt, her glasses were broken on impact with the roof, and her toque came loose and tumbled away in the heavy breeze.

The wind caressed both figures' hair, as her killer chuckled in satisfaction. Then Ragg lifted his face to the sky as the first drops of rain fell on him and her. He felt clean and vindicated, as the rain increased in volume to the level of a heavy drizzle.

He smiled as he took the time to see her crumpled body from different angles, strolling around and studying her as though she were a work of art crafted by his own hands. The blood pool becoming more diluted with rain water, her hair becoming more matted and soaked, her body, overall, looking small and damaged, like a wild animal lying dead by the side of a lonely stretch of road.

He took a reluctant sigh and straightened his posture. Fun and games were indeed done. Time to become king.

Reaching behind himself, Ragg produced the Soulflame. With the artifact in one hand, and his sword in the other, he looked very much the conqueror.

"You suburbanite trash," he gloated. "What made you think you could stop what I've planned _years_ for? The coming of a new age on Planet Earth. I don't know why you risked your life to try and save those sorry souls, but don't you worry. Once I absorb _your_ soul into the Soulflame, you'll soon have company."

He raised the artifact into the air, recalling the spell that was written around the item's width, that he had translated a long time ago for this purpose, at last.

_"Souls, one or a hundred, empower me,_

_From the highest peaks, to the deepest sea,_

_The authority that's been granted me,_

_The world is mine, and woe to thee…"_

The amber, flame-like sculpture on the artifact's top began to radiate a warm light, as though the sculpture was turning into a true flame. Ragg's mind ran free with images of parades, potential conquest, and global supplication. He then noticed another glow cascading about him, one not originating from the Soulflame.

Looking down to where Meg lay by his feet, he could see the closed Mortality Report lying by her, still in her loose grasp. A more golden glow rose gradually from the report's cover, a symbol its divine origins.

At first, the light merely caught his attention, growing more luminous and warm against the cold rain and stormy darkness. In moments, the light rose like a sunrise, subduing even the eldritch flame of his artifact, and it felt to him as though he were standing before the lamp of a lighthouse, so consumed in its radiance he was.

The light soon unfolded to illuminate the entirety of the rooftop. Then the pain hit him.

It started as a slow burning deep within his body, and then a blinding, white flash within the heart of the report's brilliance stripped his eyes away, leaving clean black holes in his skull.

He screamed into the wind until he was hoarse. He wanted to run anywhere to escape the agony that was filling up and spreading from the core of his body like a wildfire, but his muscles ignored his tortured commands. He was locked in the growing light, frozen in his victorious pose, and looking like a suffering Statue of Liberty.

His spoiled suit was the first to smolder, darkening and catching fire. Followed by his hair, which freely flew in the breeze in flaming thatches. At last, his body began to crisp and smoke, trailing dark wisps of carbonization into the storm.

Still screaming to no one who could hear him, Ragg's ravaged body finally succumb to the holy energy of the report. Exploding into fiery chunks of ruined flesh that disintegrated in the tempestuous air, his body was literally blasted away where he stood, and his soul, still immobilized, still crying out in torment, was finally, torturously, drawn into the Soulflame as it fell onto the wet roof and rested on its side, its amber flame, glowing softly.

The luminosity of the report's cover then began to recede as gradually as it began, dimming like a dying coal, slowly hiding the elements of the roof back into storm-driven darkness, until the cover was inert, a wet, white folder held in the hand of a brave girl who had fallen.

The Soulflame still glowed faintly, silently, fueled by the now-twisted existence of Ragg's captive spirit.

A hand gently righted the object and picked it up.

* * *

 

It was hazy here, and the length and breadth of _here_ was a soothing, ubiquitous white. Although there were no objects or furniture in this place, a thorough and complete peace emanated from everywhere. It was here, in this space of utter and eternal tranquility, that Meg Griffin finally awakened. Again.

Despite the soft luminescence around her, sharp spots of light danced in her vision as she looked about her, trying to get her bearings and recall what happened before waking up.

"Mmmm...What happened? Ohh...What happened to me?" she asked herself while she sat up and carefully shook her head, threatening to give herself a bad case of dizziness.

"You died, little one," the calming voice of God told her.

Meg straightened her wrecked glasses to see who addressed her, seeing a blurry figure in indistinct white robes. As her mind and vision started to clear, she vaguely remembered someone familiar.

"The Man In White?" she blurted out mistakenly.

"No, my child. Though I have been called worse."

God reached over to her and touched her glasses. In an instant, they were repaired, and Meg could see Him at last. Awestruck was likely to be her normal reaction, but she just sat there, putting it all together.

"I-I _died_ ," Meg said, almost not believing it. "Ragg! Ragg must have…killed me, after I went for the Mortality Report." She looked to her creator anxiously. "Is…is it safe?"

God just looked at her worry and smiled fatherly, like it was the most inconsequential thing for her to fret over.

"Yes, little one," he reassured her. "Here it is." It appeared next to her, the cover of its folder was bloody.

Meg picked it up. She knew that it essentially belonged to Him, and was about to give it to him when she noticed the blood stain.

"Wow, sorry I made a mess of this," Meg apologized, wiping at the deep red mark. It wouldn't do to give God a soiled folder. But the stain didn't smudge or clear up with her determined cleaning. It remained as it was, fresh, bright and crimson.

"Won't come off," she told Him nervously. "I don't know why it won't come off. I'm sorry."

God sat down beside her. The moment He said, "Don't be, Megan," she stopped and looked at Him. She saw into His peaceful eyes and wondered why she ever worried about anything.

"That blood is not a stain, but a badge," He said. "A standard that will bear your sacrifice long after Time _itself_ is forgotten. You've made a holy document holier still by your actions."

To a Roman Catholic girl this was a huge thing for Meg to digest. She knew she was, in essence, fighting against evil, but to hear that she did this well in the fight, even though she lost her life in the process, was breathtaking.

"I did?" she asked, finally awestruck.

Then she realized, as she modestly glanced down and saw the wound through her torn shirt, that time was up for her and, just as much, for Jennifer and her comrades. If all the movies she seen and all the books she'd ever read about the battle between good and evil was clear about anything, it was that it was exacting in its need for balance and fair-play, at least as far as Good was concerned. She just wanted to explain her side of the story before all was said and done.

"I just wanted to do the right thing and help my friends out. I know you don't like suicides, but I didn't think they deserved what happened to them," she said glumly.

"Nor do you deserve what has happened to you," He replied kindly. "You're a sweet girl, beset by the troubles and vexations of a sad world, and that may not change. But troubles are not the end-all and be-all of human existence."

He raised His hand to her, and held a dark, rough stone in His palm. "Do you know what this is?"

Meg scrutinized the object and said, "It looks like coal."

"Correct. And what is it made of?"

"Carbon, mostly."

God smiled proudly. "I can see that your country's school system isn't _too_ far gone. You're right. And do you know what happens when heat and pressure are applied to this coal?"

Meg was starting to wonder where this was going. "It turns into a diamond."

God closed the coal in His hand with a flourish of flexing fingers, and when He opened it again, a flawless diamond filled His palm. "That's what I see in you."

"You do?" Meg looked genuinely surprised. First for the swift transformation of the coal in His hand, and second, because He saw something that beautiful in her. His love was boundless, but she never thought she would receive it so directly.

"I do," He said. "You see, Meg, there's a reason I created Humanity out of carbon, too. Because I know that _they_ can become diamonds, if they can learn to handle the pressures of the world and just have faith. I've seen the times when you cracked, and I've also seen the times when you rose up through the adversities and the evils that others have set upon you. It was during those times when your diamond was shining the brightest."

Faith. The word sat potently in Meg's mind just then. It was taken for granted so much, these days, but here, in His presence, it was so clear. And not only her faith in him, but also just as importantly, His faith in _her_.

"Thank you, God," she said with solemn humility, but she knew that there were times when even she was sure that that faith was shaken. "But I know I must've disappointed you so many times, when I lost my temper at my family, or at the other kids at school. I'm sorry. I just...I just get so fed up, sometimes."

God leaned over and put a comforting arm over her shoulder. "You know, your dog, Brian, may be well-read, but he doesn't know everything. Do you know why I put setbacks and roadblocks in your life, Meg? It's so that you can see the strength that I put into you manifest. I understand the anger that sits in you at times. I know about the scars, both inside," He gently held up one of Meg's arms, showing off the old scars across it. "And out."

"I know where it comes from," He continued. "And I want you to know something. Some people may never see, or understand, the good person that you _are_ , or the good that you _do_. Your family doesn't understand, and may _never_ understand the good and kind person that you are."

He then looked directly into Meg's eyes with a conviction that staggered belief. "But don't ever go to bed, or wake up the next morning, thinking _I_ don't. You are _my_ creation, Megan Griffin."

He stood up and opened His hand towards her. A cool, revitalizing breeze washed over Meg, lifting her up gently. A sourceless, golden light softly bathed every inch of her body, and a feeling of peaceful serenity overcame her.

"And you have pleased me much this day," He said, as Meg was slowly lowered to her feet, the golden light submerging into her, newly and truly healed in mind, body and spirit.

"Really? Wow! Thanks, God!" Meg beamed as she looked over at her gold and white lawyer's outfit, rolling up her sleeves and finding not a single trace of a scar on her arms. Even the compulsions she once had to cut herself had vanished into nothingness. She felt, for the first time, totally clean and totally happy.

God smiled at her reaction, saying, "You're more than welcome, Megan. You have a great destiny that lies ahead of you, and the world will be the richer for it. Be strong and have faith, and you'll see the rewards of both this world, and, when your time finally comes, the next."

Upon hearing God mention the next world, Meg remembered something vital. "Oh! Speaking of which, I have to get to the courtroom. Maybe it's not too late! The jury is going to render their verdict. If-If I can give the judge the report, he'll dismiss the case in favor of the kids. I have to get there!"

God favored her with another smile, and His eyes twinkled like starshine on a clear country night.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about any of that. Besides, I knew the paperwork was stolen anyway. I allowed it to happen."

Meg was flabbergasted. "You did? But, why?"

He put His hand on her shoulder in confidence, and told her. "I delayed the judgment of Jennifer and the other children because I knew, in time, that you would become their champion, and would thwart the powers of evil that wanted to take advantage of their troubles. I believe in you, Meg Griffin. What others saw as delays, were but deliveries in _my_ time. The fruition of my plan and your purpose in it are why you are here, why the importance of this was so paramount, and why, in the end, you are so beloved in my sight, my servant, my warrior...my _child_."

His loving voice echoed faintly in Meg's mind, as she stood out in the hall, in front of the closed courtroom doors, dressed in her new suit, the blood stained Mortality Report in her hand.

"Wait 'til they get a load of me," she said in her best Nicholson, with the smile of a proven veteran in the army of Good. With a look of supreme confidence shining on her face, Megan Griffin opened the doors.


	16. 16

The courtroom, as a whole, fell into a hush when they heard the doors part and saw Meg march boldly down the aisle.

The Devil, in particular, was at a loss for words, as she walked to her bench as though nothing was wrong. Jennifer and the other kids huddled near Meg, asking question after question in low tones, but Meg waved their fears away with a placating hand and a kind voice.

The counselor turned to address the judge. "Your Honor, I'm sorry I was late getting back here-"

The judge gave her a look that squashed any excuse she may have been ready to launch.

"Miss Griffin, when you asked for this recess, the court granted you this courtesy on the understanding that you were professional enough in your duties as defense counselor to report back when your time was up. The bench would _hate_ to think that you did this simply to embarrass the court, your clients, and yourself, Miss Griffin."

Meg bowed her head in mortification. The buoyancy she felt a moment ago was gone, and her joy fell as fast a lead balloon. "No, Your Honor."

"Now then, seeing as how you managed to _just_ make it in before time had elapsed," the judge continued. "Would you please give the jury your closing argument?"

Meg had to rewind that last statement from the judge. She still had trouble believing it.

"Your Honor, did you say that I _just_ made it in? On time?"

"Yes, Miss Griffin," the judge said with time-honed patience. "You made it back in time. Perhaps besides a cell phone, you might do just as well with a watch. All the best lawyers are wearing them these days."

Despite the chuckles from the court, Meg smile gratefully and said, "Yes, Your Honor." Then she walked to the front of the courtroom.

' _God must've gave me this,'_ Meg thought as she ran her speech in her head. _'He turned back the clock for me.'_

She glanced at the prosecution, lounging coolly by his legal team. She then glanced out to the faces of the audience in attendance. She felt like had a long time ago, practicing for school plays, running line by tricky line in rehearsals, wondering what she'd looked like on stage on Opening Night, and a hundred other thoughts that jumbled in her head like clothes in a dryer.

She finally glanced over at Jennifer and understood something that she always seemed to disregard during those school play days. Her performance. Not in an "I-hope-I don't-mess-up-my-lines-and-totally-destroy-myself- on-stage-in-embarrassment" sense, but in a true sense of the word. To emote and to give every bit of yourself in the acting.

But in looking into Jennifer's worried, yet hopeful eyes, Meg knew that she could _not_ act. She had to convince this jury one last time. Make them believe one last time. She would have to shed her very being of all pretension, all ego, and bear her own self naked before the jury, clothed only in truth, passion and sincerity.

She put the speech she had prepared in her mind, out of it, and spoke from the heart.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm not angel. Not in any sense of the term. I'm human, and I came here not just to save the souls of those other humans over there, but to represent them."

"In Heaven, there's no such thing as cults because there's no need for any. It's already a beautiful place. But from where we come from, things aren't always so beautiful, for a lot of people. Now, I'm _not_ saying that that's not our fault for a lot of what goes down, because that would be a bold-faced lie, and that's not what I'm about here."

"What I'm saying is that people instinctively reach out for something when they're drowning, and sometimes what they hold on to isn't all that good for them. And when you're a kid, and you're awkward and scared, lonely and miserable that you can't find someone to talk to outside the home, and you just can't seem to catch a break, you reach out for something, _anything_ , to catch your fall. That's what my clients did. That's what I did."

"I won't show you the scars from all the times I cut myself, because the pain of my cuts hurt less than the pain in my life. I won't bore you with rousing tales of social rejection and ridicule at my expense, because I was either too smart, or too plain, or not exciting enough to lift everyone else from the boredom of high school or family life."

"There's no need, because every one of those things have already happened to my clients in one way, or another. Yes, I have wondered about suicide. Many times. I was even encouraged at it, at one point, by my own mom. Now, I don't know the family histories of my clients, and until recently, didn't know anything about Jennifer's, but there had to be a reason for them joining that cult. Maybe problems at home drove them, I can't say. All I can say is that no one joins a cult for laughs. The kids were all going through something they couldn't handle, and instead of drowning, they reached out for it."

"Why? Because they were _human._ Just like me. And I'm sure, just like _you_ used to be. I'm not saying that you should reject your spirituality in making your decision. What I am asking, however, is for you _remember_ what it was like to be human. To feel, even when it felt wrong, sometimes. To make a bad decision based on emotion, even when it felt _good_ at the time. All of those crazy, weird things that make us human beings. Don't turn your back on them, and please don't turn your back on these children. These _human_ children."

"As I told you all from the beginning, they died accidentally, and it's as true now as it was then, but you have to make your decision, and all I can do is let you know who will be condemned as a result. I like to think that Heaven is a place not only for the good, but also for the compassionate. I guess we'll all find out soon enough. Thank you."

Meg went over to the bailiff and handed him the Mortality Report. The bailiff then handed it to the judge.

"I'm sorry it took so long to find it, Your Honor," Meg confessed to him. "That's the real reason for the recess. I had to try one last time to look for it."

The judge opened the cover and pulled out a few of the pages to look over. He glanced over at Meg, and said matter-of-factly, "These pages are blank, Miss Griffin." He turned the sheets he had in his hand over, so that Meg could see that there was nothing printed on either side.

It felt to Meg like a giant question mark had settled squarely on her red-capped head. Or getting punched in the stomach. She couldn't decide.

"What?" was all she could manage to blurt out.

The judge ignored the comment, such as it was, and said to the prosecution, "Would the prosecution like to rebut?"

After seeing Meg's haunted expression on her face, the Devil calmly said, "No, Your Honor."

The judge turned his attention to the jury.

"Jury members, you have heard the evidence. Now it is your job to decide whether the members of Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult tried to commit the mortal sin of suicide. Will you please go with the bailiff to the jury room?"

As the jury filed out of the jury box, he finally regarded the rest of the court. "There will be a ten minute recess while the jury deliberates."

With a bang of the gavel, the room began to empty out into the hallway. As security gathered and escorted Jennifer and the others away, a bewildered Meg Griffin sat in her chair, trying, between bouts of confusion, to work out what the heck happened.

* * *

 

In the holding cell, Jennifer sat in the chair provided, watching her best friend slowly being ground under the weight of her possible failure.

"Gee, Meg. By the look on your face, you'd think that _you_ were the one put in this holding cell," she joked. But Meg's mood hadn't changed a jot. It may have even worsened slightly.

Meg stood by a dark corner of the cell, like a child being punished. She felt exactly that way. Like she overstepped the bounds of what she was. An Icarus who flew too close to the jurisdictional sun, and was falling into the sea of despair.

"Please look at me, Meg," Jennifer said.

"I can't," Meg said finally. It came out as a guilty croak.

"Why?"

Meg sighed. Why was Jennifer making this so difficult? "Because, I…I can't stand to see you this way. I don't want to see you this way."

Jennifer stood up and went to her. Meg heard her approach and angled herself away from her a little more, but Jennifer still approached. She came up behind Meg, and put her arms around her waist in a commiserating hug.

"I want you to know that I don't blame you for a single thing that's going to happen, Meg," she said, feeling hot tears fall on her closed hands and wrists. "You did everything you could do to save us. You were…you _are_ a real friend."

"Then how come you're going to Hell, huh?" Meg asked in a bitter sob. "How come I can't stop _that_ from happening? You asked me to help you, and I couldn't even do that!"

Jennifer held her tighter as a response. "You did what you could, Meg. You were a fighter out there. You fought for us and I couldn't be prouder. Thank you so much for what you did."

Meg couldn't be swayed. Her guilt wouldn't allow it. "I did _nothing_."

Jennifer could see that Meg was too despondent to listen. Too stuck in her own Hell. She wished her friend could understand that it was all right. That yes, she was afraid, but not bitter of any failings on Meg's part. It was just a bad bit of business, that's all.

"Oh, Meg," she sighed, in sadness for _her_.

There came a knock on the door and the bailiff stepped in.

"It's time," the woman said to them.

* * *

 

The judge looked out over the court, as both prosecution and his team, and the defense and her charges, stood by their benches. From the other side of the courtroom, he could see the jury returning to the jury box in solemn silence. Whatever was passed among them had put them all in a somber mood.

A mood that was shared in equal intensity over at the defense's bench, where counsel looked as though she were the condemned awaiting verdict. Nothing more could be said or done, except to listen to the verdict, which he asked for now.

Meg tried to stand up straight as she saw the presiding juror stand up from among his peers with a piece of paper in his hand. But her heart just wasn't in it, couldn't _be_ in it, particularly when she could see the Devil give a sly, slick smile to one of the members of his legal team. She leaned over the table slightly, sure she was going to be sick.

The judge looked to the juror and asked, "Have you reached a verdict?"

The presiding juror answered. "We have, Your Honor."

"What is the verdict?"

"It is the judgment of the court that the defendants, the members of the Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult, are not guilty of the charge of suicide."

The only thing that woke Meg up from her funk was the screams that rose from Jennifer and the others beside her, as the judge banged his gavel to return order to the proceedings.

Jennifer grabbed Meg in a bear hug, yelling in her ears, "You did it! You did it! I _knew_ you could do it!"

Meg, for her part, thought she just woke from a slow-building bad dream, and into the middle of a New Year's Eve party.

"We won?"

"Yes! Yes! We won! You did it!"

It was like winning the lottery a hundred times over for Meg. All the effort, worry, and pain were over, and she was being rewarded for it.

She wiped her eyes and hugged her best friend back as hard as she could. She had to keep reminding herself that she succeeded in so monumental a task, because it was so hard to believe. An awkward teenaged girl from Rhode Island, bested the Devil, and saved her friend's soul.

As Jennifer and her comrades talked animatedly about telling the other members of their very good fortune, Meg could see the Devil sulking mightily. Then he sighed, straightened himself off, and walked over to her side of the room.

Meg tensed. She knew from the aborted attack earlier, that he could be as much a bad loser, as a good one. She hoped security was on the ball now.

He stood in front of her, square-shouldered, looking down upon her from his height. He raised his hand.

Meg couldn't watch the coming attack, and was just glad that Jennifer and the others were off the hook.

When enough time passed that Meg felt something was amiss, she cautiously opened her eyes.

The hand was still in the air, palm open, to receive _her_ hand.

"No hard feelings?" the Devil asked.

Meg was raised to be polite, so she raised her hand ever so skeptically to fit it into his. Thoughts of his little nausea handshake running in her mind.

Nothing happened. No ill effects or sickness, just a firm shake from a strong hand. Gratified, Meg shook back with a friendly vigor.

"Not bad, kid. Not bad," he told her. "You certainly went the distance with this one. Thought I had this one all sewn up, but you pulled it off."

"Thank you," she said, releasing him finally.

"Hey, listen, if you ever want to go corporate, I know some people you might-"

She politely held up her hand to stop his pitch. "No, thank you, Mr. Scratch, but I think if I ever want to do this again, I'll follow my faith, my guts, and my heart. They've certainly gotten me this far."

When the Devil looked hurt, Meg wasn't sure how she should respond, but then he made his expression more cordial, as he said with a slight respectful bow, "Very well, Megan Griffin, defense attorney. Besides, I've got a pretty neat consolation prize."

He presented the Soulflame and held up to Meg. If one looked closely, one could still see and hear the tortured spirit of Ragg raging on inside the sculptured, amber fire.

Like a naughty boy taunting and frightening a girl with a frog, he began bringing it uncomfortably close to Meg's face, before snatching it away again, asking her rather childishly, "You wanna touch it? Huh? You wanna touch it? You wanna touch it?"

"Ew! No! You can have him! Just get him away from me and enjoy," Meg said, recoiling away slightly.

With a chuckle, the Devil backed off. "Okay, I'm off now. Say hi to your folks for me. Tell 'em I'm always thinking about them." He then added slyly, "To use against you."

As Jennifer and the others huddled behind Meg, either _for_ protection, or to give it, the counselor shrugged off the comment confidently, and said, "Whatever."

From up the aisle, the doors opened and Death flowed into the room, down towards Meg and the defendants.

The Devil, walking back to his bench, turned and saw Death walk up to congratulate her. Seeing the two of them together, he went silent for a moment, and then said to her, as a cryptic farewell, "Well played, mortal. But I suppose when all is said and done, death really _is_ your closest friend."

Without another word on the subject, he and his prize left in a red and black whirlwind of smoke.

Death looked as puzzled as anyone in a hood could convey, as he asked her, "What did he say?"

Meg, absorbing the Devil's parting words, and looking thoroughly introspective as she weighed them, finally said to her friend, "Nothing." Then she asked, "How did you get here? I'd thought you'd be busy."

"I gave him a lift on my way here," said God as he walked over to the defense bench, seemingly from nowhere.

Meg turned to see Him. All of the time she spent with Him, still vivid in her mind, and it seem, the confusion.

"I don't get it, God," she said. "Why would you give me a report with nothing in it? I thought that the report would show the court that the kids died accidentally. I'm glad I won the case for them, but did I go through all of this for nothing?"

"Not at all," he told her. "I _could_ have left the writing on the papers, and let you win the case just like that. But think about it. Even if the report could have won the case, it would have been nowhere near as important as _you_ winning the case." He then pointed at her nose playfully.

Meg was struck dumb. "Huh?"

With a smile born of infinite patience, God shook His head slowly and explained.

"When you stood up in front of the jury and gave your closing argument, you did more than just convince a jury out there. You put yourself on trial, too. You showed the jury, in a way the Devil never could, what you were willing to do for someone who needed you. You used your brains, your guts, your will, and that big heart of yours to save those souls. That's what makes you a lawyer, Meg. That's what makes you a _good_ lawyer. And that's why you won today."

Meg had a lot to think about just then, and the words the Devil said to her in parting seemed so far away now. Replaced by words that were far more important. Words that she understood immediately.

"I get it, now," she said with a grateful look on her face. "Thank you."

God nodded approvingly and said, holding out a wrapped object, "And for being such a winner, here's a lollipop for you." Meg, never being one to disregard a gift from the All High, accepted it, and popped it in her mouth.

The second she did, a wave of indescribable flavor hit her tongue, and she suddenly became caught up in the ecstasy gag of those dogs that ate the treats in the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

"Mmmm…"

"Mmmmm…"

"MMMMMMmmmmm!"

She then shot into the air and then, amazingly, floated gently back down to the floor in absolute bliss.

"Ahhhhhh…"

Death leaned over to God and asked in low tones, "What are they, and where can _I_ get some?"

* * *

 

Meg's earthly form didn't appear on the roof of the now deceased Ragg's building. Instead, she woke up outside, by the foot of a long, stately staircase of gray stone steps that led to an abandoned mansion of modern architecture, in the suburbs. A mansion she had been to before.

"The cult's headquarters?" she asked herself. Just as well, she figured. This adventure surely had come full circle.

The street was empty and quiet, and on the curb nearby, was the red family station wagon. _'He provides all,'_ she thought with a smile, as she looked up into the cool, clear night sky.

Then the sounds of a gathering caught her attention. Standing up and following the hubbub, Meg clambered through the overgrowing shrubs and hedges to see a strange, yet welcome, assemblage.

The entire and former Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult surrounded Death. They were beaming in happiness and talking a mile a minute, although no one, save Meg, could hear them. Even the old cult leader was smiling and taking his ease with some of them, especially Jennifer, whose body language showed that she was more forgiving of him now.

She turned to see Meg struggling out of the branches of a particularly thick shrub, and ran over to her with a hug that threatened to knock her back into the bush.

"Meg! Meg!" Jennifer squeaked joyfully. "Great news! I'm going to be Death's new apprentice! Isn't that just the coolest?"

From up close, Meg could see that Jennifer was now wearing a black tracksuit, in place of her former blue one. On the back of her jacket, stenciled in white, was the word, _Trainee_

"Wow!" Meg said, not exactly sure how to take it, but not willing to spoil her friend's good mood, either. "I can't believe it! I'm actually jealous. Congratulations, Jennifer." They then gave each other another hug.

"I'm going to get the others ready for departure," Jennifer chirped as she left Meg. "I'll be back!"

Death quietly walked over to Meg, watching Jennifer talk enthusiastically amongst her friends. Meg noticed him, but didn't turn when she spoke.

"New apprentice, huh?"

"Yeah, well," Death said, almost sounding sheepish. "Figured the kid needed someone to, y'know, talk to, and I kinda let slip that I _might_ need somebody to take the reins when I retire."

"Wow, Death," said Meg, surprised at his sensitivity. "That's kinda sweet. Didn't know you were such an old softy."

"Well, don't spread it around. I got an image to maintain," he said with mock-indignity. Then he looked back at Meg with a sigh, his head bowed slightly in a gesture of defeat. "What is it with you Griffins? I hang around with you guys, and my heart, as it were, always winds up on my sleeve." Meg just smiled at the tough-guy act.

"Yeah, I got an image. All _bad_ , y'know? There was a time when pretty much nobody feared death? Nowadays, unless it's Halloween, I've got bad PR, and job security's not enough, y'know?"

"I'm sorry to hear that," Meg commiserated. "But why Jennifer?"

"Your friend's a pretty sweet kid. She's got a good head on her shoulders, too, for having me get in touch with you. It's too bad she fell in with that nutcase, but it's only 'cuz nobody would listen to her, or take her seriously."

"Yeah," Meg said sadly. "I know."

"Then you know where I'm coming from. She needs somebody out there, maybe give her the kind of life she didn't have here on Earth, y'know? Like as a role-model, or a mentor-"

"Or a father?" Meg asked, understanding, at last.

For heartbeats, Death said nothing.

Then with a chuckle, he composed himself. "Hey, let's not read too much into this. I just think with her, someday, she can really improve the image of the business. She's a real people person. Maybe with her running things, one day, folks can say, "Maybe death's not so bad," y'know?"

Meg gave another wise smile to Death, who knew she could see through his semi-pragmatic evasions. "Well, just look after her, you old softy, okay? She's my friend, too."

"Can do, kid," he said with all sincerity. "Come on. You can see us off."

They walked over to the throng of kids and one old man. Jennifer stood proudly over her charges, as Meg and Death approached.

"Oh, hi, guys," Jennifer sang. "What were you talking about over there?"

"Oh, just...stuff," Meg said breezily. Then said more sincerely, "I'm glad things are working out for you now."

"I knew they would," Jennifer said, beaming. "That's why I told them that _you_ had to defend us, Meg. I knew when I first saw you in school that day, there was a reason you were put on this Earth. To help others...There's no one like you."

Something broke in Meg's heart at that moment, something she thought she'd never hear in a million lifetimes. Those words. Tears swelled out of her eyes, and right then and there, she knew she would miss her terribly.

Meg moved forward with no preamble, hugging the girl as tight as her emotions could spur her.

"I'm going to miss you so much," Meg whispered in a sob.

"Oh, me, too, Meg."

For a handful of minutes, no one spoke, no one disturbed the moment. It was too pure and far too long in coming. But at last, Death had to politely end it with a light cough.

"Okay, you guys," Meg said while regaining her composure. "You take care of yourselves."

"We will!" Jennifer said, as she and Death stood next to the crowd of saved souls, a soft, ethereal glow from an unseen light source, bathing them from above. "Thanks for everything, Meg! We'll never, ever forget you!"

Then an afterthought hit Meg and she quickly asked her, "Hey, Jennifer, will I ever see you again?"

"Are you kiddin'? With this country's health care system?" Death chimed in, jokingly.

"Oh, you!" Jennifer chided perkily at him, with that smile that seemed as magical and eternal as she was now, as the glow reached an illumination that made Meg shield her eyes.

Then, they were gone.

Alone in the mansion's driveway, Meg could only hear in her mind the lingering laughter of Jennifer's voice as it began to fade into the mists of a treasured memory.

"Thanks, guys," she quietly said to the stars. Then, with a deep sigh and a hard-won confidence, Megan Griffin turned around, went to her car, and drove home.


	17. 17

The James Woods High School Anthem  
(Sung to the tune of "Love Me Tender)

_James Woods, James Woods,_   
_James Woods High_   
_Actor of our age,_

_Coolest movie star by far,_   
_TV, film and stage_

_Born in Utah,_   
_Grew up here,_   
_Many may not know,_

_Went to MIT and he's,_   
_A poker playing pro_

_James Woods, James Woods_   
_James Woods High,_   
_Let our voices ring,_

_Worked on Rudy and Cat's Eye,_   
_That flick by Stephen King_

_James Woods, James Woods,_   
_James Woods High,_   
_Never shall we roam,_

_Against All Odds, we'll stay with you,_   
_In spite of Videodrome_

 

Assembly ended, at last, and for Meg, there was a comfort at seeing the same old auditorium again. Its American flag and broad, badly lit stage. Its tiered seating and archaic sound system. Assembly was to be the last event of the day, with students going home immediately after it. Spooner Street was calling, and she was eager to get home.

Anonymously walking through the crowds that formed as the last bell of school rang, she pondered the key moments of her recent adventure, one week past, with the aid of sobering clarity. She had done what few could admit to. Gone through what blessed few _could_ have.

And it transformed her in ways that even now, she was still trying to get a handle on. She skated on the edge of the ethereal, and got to talk to God personally. She defended innocent souls victoriously, and stood up against great evil, not just on Earth, but beyond. It was quite a lot to take in.

Meg felt small as she watched the same people she used to either admire, or obsess about, mill around in their own little spheres of influence. She felt so far away from everyone. They couldn't touch her, they couldn't know what she knew. They just weren't strong enough.

But the smallness she felt wasn't a bad kind, based on low self-esteem, but rather, it was humility, a rewarding sense of humbleness that filled her up, like a bag of water, bursting at the seams. She felt mature, and it wasn't just a sense of accomplishment and happiness that filled her, but also peace.

She was Meg in name, only. And it felt good.

Walking through the halls reminded Meg of her last conversation with Death in the school prior to all that happened. She wondered what he and Jennifer were doing now. Both working hard, obviously. She, learning the tricks of the trade, and teaching Death something, too, in her own way. If it were a slow day, he might have invited her to meet his mother, which would have led to Mrs. Death doting all over the girl, and telling his protégé truly embarrassing stories concerning her son and his less-than-shining moments.

Meg smiled at that. Nothing like a little humility to keep one's feet on the ground.

When she reached her locker, she opened the door, placed some things in, and took some things out. When she closed it again, it revealed a surly looking Connie staring at her.

Meg's defenses rose for the challenge coming, but she noticed that, strangely, Connie was alone. No Varsity jacket clad sycophants, or pretty boy poseurs shadowing her.

"Did you hear?" Connie asked with a sneer in her voice. "Your boss, that Ragg guy, disappeared. Police are looking for him. They think that he might have ran off with some of his company's money. So, what does it feel like to work for a possible criminal, Meg?"

Meg surprised herself in how she answered. Before, she would have probably tried to sink to D'amico's level, but now, she was so centered, that she spoke to Connie as easily as if she was asked about the weather.

"Actually, Connie, I did hear all about it. Yeah, Ragg _did_ disappear, but his company's in good shape, ever since that merger with that media company, the _Eddy Group._ However, I don't think the company's new management will let me keep my advice column job. They picked someone else to do it. Some girl named Hope."

"I know," Connie said.

Meg looked at her quizzically. "How _do_ you know that? Have you written to her?"

Connie looked stricken. Vulnerabilities, _her_ vulnerabilities, were in danger of being exposed. "What? No! Anyway, why should they have you on?" Connie said with a disdainful sniff. "It wasn't like you would have been any _good_ at it."

Meg looked at D'amico with something akin to pity. "So you say," she countered unperturbed, as she gathered her belongings. "But speaking of disappearances, where's your back-up singers?"

Connie huffed a reply. "What's it to you, Griffin? I don't have to have my friends with me everywhere I go, 24/7. If I need them here with me, boom, they're here. You have to turn over rocks to even find anyone who'll be with you. I don't even know why I wasted my time coming over here. See ya, loser."

With that, she turned on her heel and stomped off, leaving Meg very perplexed that this scene even happened. Why _did_ she come over here? Simply to try and rub her face in the company scandal? Possibly. But bullies crave attention, and Connie was alone. So what was Connie playing at?

* * *

 

Somewhere out on the ocean, a half-submerged airliner floated amidst bobbing debris and aviation fuel, which trailed out of rent sections.

All passengers were accounted for, or rather, their _souls_ were, as they all stood on the roof of the largest section in consternation.

"What happening? What's going on, here?"

"We have to be somewhere. Is anybody coming to rescue us?"

"Why is the guy from the Scream movies talking on the phone?"

Death was at his cell phone, talking to someone that Jennifer could only guess was in authority. A lot of "Yes, sir," "No, sir," and, from she could make out in the heavy murmurs and complaints of the crowd, "Three bags full, sir."

When he finally hung up, Death motioned for Jennifer to come over to him. "Kid, we got a problem. A lot of these passengers were on their way to family reunions and vacations. If they keep grousing like this, and don't want to move on, they're probably gonna want to stay and become ghosts."

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked.

"Kind of. See, The Boss doesn't mind it when there's a few floatin', here and there. Lets people know that there's still a spiritual presence here on Earth. It's when there's a whole crowd of them hangin' around, that things get kinda tricky. Tends to scare the natives, y'know? It's a real hassle, paperwork-wise, too, and since they're not where they're supposed to be, they're like lost cattle with The Boss's brand on 'em. You wanna get 'em all corralled before the foreman gets back."

"I see," Jennifer said, her face beaming with understanding. "Wait here."

It seemed unusual for the _trainee_ to take over for the _trainer_ so soon in the _training_ , but Death figured that there was no harm. These spirits couldn't go anywhere just yet, anyway.

Death saw Jennifer disappear into the center of the mass of souls and then watched them begin to huddle around her, as if listening to something she was saying.

A minute later, the crowd, in portions, gradually began to sit together, swaying in time, as Jennifer stood in the middle of them, leading them all in a rousing version of _Kumbaya_.

Death stood flabbergasted as his assistant then waded through the crowd, back to where he stood.

"Hey, how'd you do that?" asked a very pleased Death.

Without missing a beat, Jennifer gave her boss a happy smile, while she, too, swayed to the singing, and said, "Oh, it was nothing at all, boss. I just told them that if they didn't come with us, and stayed on Earth, the powers of darkness would send their greatest champion to come get them."

"Who, the Devil?"

"Nope, the Ghost Whisperer."

With a slight chuckle of surprise, Death was suitably impressed. He put a congratulatory, skeletal hand on her shoulder, and told her, quite proudly, "Kid, I'll make a Grim Reaper out of you, yet."

* * *

 

Meg sat by her windowsill as she waited for her computer to boot up. She looked out to The Swanson's home next door, and a pang of grief touched her heart. She had made contact with Kevin in a way his parents could never appreciate, and even though it was meant to inspire her to fight on, now that the fight was over, she wasn't sure how to internalize this disconnect as anything other than loss.

Her need to love and to be loved would always be a part of her, and lovers would come and go. But, she figured, perhaps correctly, that the pain of that loss was making her a stronger woman. It was, she knew, yet another strike of the chisel of Life, creating another facet in the diamond called Meg.

Her cell phone rang on her desk, bringing her out of her deep thoughts. In the end, Kevin was an aspect of her that she couldn't change, even if it burdened her with some emotional baggage. Better to find the positive in it, than not, and make it her own.

She picked it up. Upon hearing the voice of her editor, she perked up and asked her, "What have you got for me?"

"We just ran through the first batch of letters, Meg. They should be in your email inbox now, but I don't understand why you want to use a pen name. Trust me as your editor on this. If things go right with this assignment, you could make a career out of this."

Meg sat down at her desk, and with one hand on her computer, called up her email account.

"I know, and you might be right about all that, but I just want to make sure that while I'm doing this, I'm doing this for all the right reasons. I don't want any ego to get in the way of the good I can do here. That's why I don't want anyone to know it's me."

"Well, I can't argue with that, Meg, and the editor-in-chief _was_ nice enough to keep you on, even though the advice column idea was Ragg's." the editor said. "Okay, you can keep the pen name. Somehow, it kinda suits you."

"Thanks, Mrs. Campbell. Well, it's getting late. I better get started."

"Okay, dear, I won't keep you. Let us know when you're done, so we can put them in the next edition. Have a blessed day."

"You, too," Meg said, and then she hung up.

"No time like the present," she said, as she opened her inbox and got to work. She saw a list of ten emails, all coming from the magazine's office. Each one, a potential cry in the awkward dark, looking for a mentor who wasn't a grown-up. Their own teen bodhisattva to sit by the foot of.

Meg cracked her knuckles, prepared her heart and mind for the new adventure that awaited her, and dove in, opening the first email.

The thrill was immediate, as the letter scrolled down, and she read the salutation before her.

 

_"Dear Hope,_

_I don't normally do things like this. Normally, I'm a pretty popular girl in school and the things that other girls go through don't usually apply to me. But something happened that put my whole world in a blender set on puree._

_Guys like me. A lot. And because I have my choice of any guy I want, I can have one dude, or several, on my arm any day of the week. But this one time, I have to admit that I was seriously crushing!_

_His name was Rudy, and he was so hot looking. I thought I was gonna die right there in class when I saw him, and I almost did inside when he came over and talked to me._

_Well, we started going out for a few weeks. I thought that he was really the one guy for me, until I found out that he was sampling some of the cheerleaders on the side._

_When I told him about it, he totally denied it. And when I said that some of my friends saw him making out with Sherry, the head cheerleader, he finally 'fessed up._

_Can you believe he told me that it was nothing? That I shouldn't get all worked up over it, and that what we had wasn't that special! I wanted to push him into traffic. I wanted to strap him to a table and dissect him like the toad he was. I was so mad at him._

_He walked away like it was nothing, and it was a good thing, too, because I was starting to tear up. I swear, guys stink sometimes._

_I didn't want to be with my friends at all that day, but that day turned into a week. I didn't care. Besides, I didn't want them to know what happened between Rudy and me._

_I don't know why, Hope, but I still wanted to talk to someone about it. I guess I figured that my friends wouldn't know what to do when it came to rejection and stuff. But I kind of knew who would._

_I know this girl in school named Meg Griffin. Kind of a Plain Jane. My friends and me sometimes rag on her for a laugh, y'know? But lately, I've been thinking about stopping that._

_You think you know somebody, and I used to think she was such a spaz back then, but I never knew what she was capable of. She may be smaller than me, but she can really get tough when she wants to. Not that she had to be with me, and all that, but I guess I kind of like the new Meg a little. God, if she ever knew that I said that…_

_Did you know that she said that she likes to think about me when she's in the tub, and that she even kissed me once? Well, somebody told me that she kissed me when I…fell asleep one time in the cafeteria. Could that little geek be crushing on me? Weird, huh?_

_Anyway, I guess I wanted to say something to someone. Y'know, just to get it off my chest, and somehow, I wound up talking to Meg, of all people! But I couldn't tell her about my boyfriend and me breaking up. I know that she'd use that against me somehow, after all the times I made fun of her!_

_I couldn't let her do that, so instead, I just went to her and did the usual thing I do, make fun of her, make light of her accomplishments, and then walk away. Funny thing was that she didn't look too upset when I did that to her. She kind of just brushed it off. Whoa!_

_I mean, I don't want to get beat up agai, uh, I mean, fall asleep when she's around, y'know, but, I don't know. She seems kind of stronger now. She's kind of interesting._

_I mean, she's all right sometimes, I guess! When she and I worked together once to get back at her little brother, she really had a knack for being cold-blooded. Wow._

_I mean…anyway, that's why I wrote to you, Hope. I guess you been there, and done that, and whatever, so I really would like to know what you think. About what I just wrote, and about how to handle this problem with my relationships lately. And maybe about Meg, too. Maybe._

_I guess guys just weren't meant to understand us women, and we girls need to keep our secrets. Ha. Ha. Anyway, thanks for listening to me."_

_Signed_

_Blonde and Confused_

 

Meg sat there, stunned. She didn't think the very first letter she would respond to would come from Connie _herself_. That certainly explained her behavior in the hall earlier. The notion to use this bombshell of information against her was so delicious that it wasn't worth wasting words to describe it.

It would cripple her standing in the school, it would drive her friends from her like fire in a rat-infested barn. _It would destroy her._

And that brought her back to her senses. Would she be the instrument that would see Connie D'amico driven into the same scenario that befell Jennifer and so many others? The Devil's minions work in secret and sometimes didn't even know they were in his employ.

Meg forced her mind to stop its childish scheming and looked at the letter not with dispassion, but with affection. Others would need a similar attitude from her and if she couldn't foster it in D'amico, of all people, she couldn't do her job.

With a knowing smile, Meg settled in for the evening and began to write back.

"Don't worry, Connie," she said. "Your secrets are safe with me."

**The End**


End file.
